Growing Up Without My Mother, I Found Strength in Olympic Skating Heroes

I lost my mother when I was young. So women like Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski, and Sasha Cohen taught me about femininity and fierceness.

My obsession with figure skating was borne out of my interest in other young girls; creatures I couldn’t quite relate to as a child, but whom I imagined might be my friends and confidantes if only I could achieve that carefree lightness of girlhood those around me radiated so naturally.

After losing my mother when I was five, any sense of femininity—if one can be said to possess it at so young an age—seemed to dissipate along with her memory. I had no model of what it meant to be a woman, and worse, I felt at my core that without a mother to love and encourage me, I didn’t matter.

When I watched Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski competing at the 1998 Winter Olympics at eight years old, I found my idols. On the cusp of adolescence, Tara Lipinski bounded onto the ice, leaping and moving with exuberance and energetic spirit. I understood from watching her that girlhood could be an expression of uncontained joy and unrestrained will.

From the moment Michelle Kwan landed the first jump of her Olympic free skate performance, a triple-lutz double-toe combination, and opened her arms to the sky with joy as the melody of Lyra Angelica played in the background, I was similarly captivated. In her performance, I saw a model for the way I wanted to face growing up without my mother: a challenge I could approach with the ferocity of an athlete and the flawlessness of a world-class skater, a routine I could mimic until it became second nature.

I found my own outlet in dance. Like stepping onto the ice, moving across the worn wooden floor of the studio allowed all the energy I had built up inside me to flow freely like an electrifying current, stirring emotions I didn’t know how to name. Channeling the emotive movements of skaters I admired, I gave everything in me over to the music; when I danced I felt an unraveling of my knotted and bitter sadness. When I danced, I was seen.

At my first dance competition, the green room behind the stage was packed with dancers and mothers who artfully applied liquid liner and fake lashes until their daughters became moving works of art. Under the blaring vanity lights, I felt frumpy and inadequate. I had stuffed my costume into my usual dance bag and brought the only makeup I could find: a wand of crusted-over mascara and some blue eye shadow.

Through the light bouncing off reflected sequins, I observed mothers tilting up their daughters’ chins, lipstick in hand, as they pulled extra bobby pins from their pockets and sprayed clouds of aerosol hairspray. Dancers talked excitedly from the sides of their mouths, sitting side by side as they watched their transformation take place, eyes wide. Other girls, ready to rehearse one last time, sprang from their seats and ran through the room, grabbing one another’s hands as they looked for an open space to practice their pirouettes. I hovered on the periphery, overwhelmed by their energy and unable to feel like I was one of them.

My aunt helped out by dropping me off at rehearsals and bringing me to competitions, but our relationship was cold and indifferent. I loved when my father made it to a performance, but he couldn’t help me get ready backstage. With no mother there to help me, instead, I thought of Sasha Cohen, of the costumes she designed herself and her bright, embellished features. I thought of Sasha’s bold face with heavy lashes and bright lips, and got to work on painting my own, imagining myself transforming into the coy, nimble performer Sasha became on the ice.

Envisioning the determined face of one of my favorite skaters helped me channel my nervous energy into excitement. I caught the arm of one of the dancers from my group and ran after her, lining up with the rest as we stretched backstage. In the wings, I glimpsed the audience and thought only of how much I loved the experience of performing.

As much as I fantasized about belonging, about being as vibrant and effervescent as the others, I also felt indignant. I decided that the lack of my mother’s presence raised the standards I needed to meet. I needed to be better than the girls who were coddled by the praise of their parents; my performance must be superior to offset the terrible shortcomings caused by the lack of maternal wisdom to shape and guide me. I needed to be the absolute best.

But famous skaters as a collective stand-in for a mother could only take me so far. Even with my role models to give me strength, this feeling of aloneness I had, this deep sense of truly not being able to connect authentically with anyone, only grew. By the time I was eleven, the confusion over who I was becoming and the impending prospect of adolescence without a woman to guide me engulfed the lightness of my childhood fantasies like becoming a figure skating champion or a professional dancer. It made a mockery of my girlhood notions that I could do or be anyone I wanted. I knew I would surely fall short of the only women I had to idolize: queens of the ice, untouchable beings, possessing far greater capacities than I could ever dream of.

In the imperfections of Michelle Kwan, however, I found solace. I was twelve, and had gone to my grandparent’s house during winter break, thankful for a week where I could just be myself away from the pressures of school. I watched Michelle compete from their living room, curled on the couch anxiously. The opening baritone chords of Scheherazade, her free skate at the 2002 Winter Olympics, conjured a sense of ominous power as she cut across the ice, her red and gold costume like Firebird from Stravinsky’s ballet.

But then she fell on her triple flip. I gasped as her body met the ice, closing my eyes in reflexive horror. My grandmother gasped next to me, spilling the tea from the cup she clutched in her hands. Riveted, we watched Michelle rebound and finish skating as crisply and boldly as ever, arching her back and tipping her head in a final elegant finish that seemed to bare her heart to the world. We exhaled, nodding to one another in approval of her efforts.

In the imperfections of Michelle Kwan, however, I found solace.

That performance marked a transition in my admiration of Michelle Kwan. Her courage to approach risk, her vulnerability in giving her all to the world—on her own, no less, having left her long-time coach just months before—was more beautiful to me than a flawless program would’ve been. It made me feel like I was not alone in my failures.

Even Michelle Kwan, whom I considered the best and most beautiful athlete, had fallen. She did what she loved despite every risk of failure, and even when she faltered she kept going. And in that respect, she succeeded.

I constantly felt like I was falling on the ice as I stumbled through adolescence—not knowing who to look to or how to handle the bewildering idea of going from girl to woman. So I read obsessively about my favorite skaters and watched them with the deepest admiration of their strength, and their freedom. I treasured their stories of success and sacrifice and reveled in the glamour and intrigue of their competitions and rivalries.

Those stories carried me through my adolescence. Michelle Kwan’s graceful acceptance of herself, even after an Olympic loss, was a reminder of how important it was to just keep going.

*

I gave the valedictory speech at my high school graduation. Tottering to the podium in careful steps, feeling like a little girl playing dress up in my oversized graduation gown, I looked at the audience and wanted to rip my written speech into shreds. No matter how hard I worked, I still hadn’t become the woman I wanted. And the one woman who could convince me otherwise was gone. I tried to think of it as a performance; if this were a competition with my classmates sitting behind me, then this was my chance to prove I could make it, I would make it, without her.

“To the members of the Class of 2008, congratulations, we did it!”

I wondered if this was what skaters felt when they stood on the podium at their medal ceremony. Was their relief at reaching one goal only eclipsed by the pressure they felt to attain one bigger? Tara Lipinski turned professional immediately after becoming the youngest gold medalist in Winter Olympic history, and before that becoming the youngest female US National Champion and youngest female World Champion. She became a professional performer and commentator, melding a career as an actress with one of a broadcast journalist. She placed figure skating into a different context in her life and transformed from a childhood champion to a woman not defined solely by her athletic success. How would I define myself?

Deep inside I knew I didn’t want to be defined by my mother’s loss but emboldened by her memory.

Deep inside I knew I didn’t want to be defined by my mother’s loss but emboldened by her memory. Remarkable to me in that moment was the belief I had as a younger girl in the possibilities. I dreamed of becoming a physician as well as a dancer, imagining summer ballet intensives in New York City followed by medical residency and an oncology fellowship. I wanted to be an artist and a healer, a woman able to both create and cure.

I couldn’t fathom the trials it would take to accomplish such goals, not least of which would be my own inner doubt and grief, my ever-present companions. But there were women who had risen to the challenges they set for themselves, who had literally set their sights on gold. And if they could find success, why couldn’t I?

I gripped the edge of the dais to keep from wringing my hands nervously. Looking into the audience of faces was only a reminder of who wasn’t there: the one person I had wanted with me through the past four years to remind me whom I came from and who I could potentially be.

It was a desolate February when I watched the 2010 Winter Olympics. I was a sophomore in college and spent all my time studying, usually to the exclusion of sleep and food. The dark days, cold and heavy with snow, left me exhausted. The Olympic spectacle was one event for which I gave myself a reprieve, and I headed to my grandparents’ house to watch with them, as was our tradition.

They enfolded me in a hug and tugged me inside, admonishing me for my gaunt frame as my grandmother put on a pot of tea. I set my backpack, torn at the seams from textbooks, in the corner and allowed myself to feel the familiar excitement that figure skating brought.

Canadian skater Joannie Rochette was sleeping in the Olympic village in Vancouver on the early morning of February 21 when her mother Thérèse died of a heart attack. It was the exact same day my mother had died, fourteen years before.

Aching, I watched her short program two days later. How she managed to compete, I could not fathom. Her crisp staccato footwork melted into luscious twists and spirals as the bold violin strings of a tango reverberated into the arena. She landed every jump flawlessly. When the music ended, she folded in half and sobbed.

If ever I needed an example of pure grace and perseverance, Joannie Rochette was it. Joannie’s Olympic bronze was only a token compared to the remarkable inner light she gave as a gift to me that winter. She was solid, a woman who accepted her emotions but did not succumb to them. She embraced pain and grief but channeled them toward beauty.

As I faced an uncertain future in which I would truly be alone, with only myself to count on as I either pursued my dreams or let them slip away, I committed myself to trying to do the same.