In February 1996, Gordeeva returned to the ice, this time as a solo performer. Her first performance was a tribute to her late husband, skated to the "Adagietto" section of Gustav Mahler's "Symphony No. 5." The number was publicly performed only twice, first at a preview performance at the Minto Skating Club in Ottawa, Ontario and then on 27 February 1996, in a televised tribute to Grinkov called "Celebration of a Life," in which numerous skating luminaries took part. Gordeeva has said that she felt as if she skated with Sergei that night, that she was "double strong" because she felt him with her. The same year, with the aid of author E. M. Swift, she told her story in a book titled "". In February 1998, CBS aired an eponymous docudrama based on the book. She published a second book in April 1998, titled "A Letter for Daria". In 1998, she told an interviewer that "My life of great skating, and skating with him, is over ... I don't try to go now for Olympics. I take skating for a job."