"I don't remember how I heard about the burned girl. Probably it was my new friend Scot, with his spiritual leanings and whom I was seeing a lot of at that time, who told me. A new friend is useful in the kind of crisis that ensues when you are cutting your old life loose, or have had it cut loose for you." A woman's intimately-told meditation on how empathy for another's suffering may be crucial in weathering personal trauma.