Emily Rapp Black's first child, a boy named Ronan, had died before he turned three years old from Tay-Sachs disease. Since that time, she left the marriage that fractured under the terrible weight of her son's illness, remarried a man who she fell in love with while her son was dying, had a flourishing career, and given birth to a healthy baby girl. She had, in the manner of the mythical phoenix, risen from the ashes and been reborn into a new story, when she carried so much of her old story with her. Everyone she met told her she was resilient, strong, courageous in ways they didn't think they could be. Drawing on contemporary psychology, neurology, etymology, literature, art, and self-help, Emily Rapp Black shows how we need a more complex understanding of this concept when applied to stories of loss and healing.