Hello SheWrites Bloggers. I suppose I should start with a brief preamble. Firstly, thank you to Julie for her kind words about my blog. It is an enormously important part of my life and work. Secondly, thank you to Julie Simon Lakehomer, our previous week's curator. Without Julie's words about her initially misplaced post, I might not have found my way here. Thirdly, I wish I had time to have scanned the multitude of well written blogs on our site before crafting this post. In truth, I've had house flooding and a new puppy on top of working, writing and single-mothering these past two weeks. Therefore, I've glommed my reviews strictly onto posts that piqued my personal interests in terms of subject matter. Acknowledging my massive subjectivity and time limitations here seems important. That being said, the first blog post I've chosen is written by: Sandra Carrington-Smith. She titled her post: The Path Of The Phoenix - Rising From The Ashes Of teen Suicide. What particularly impressed me about this piece is that Sandra drew from disparate stimuli: an incidental piece of television that she overheard while doing something else, a story she heard at a writers conference and her own musings about pain and transformation. She managed to extrapolate from the three and create a post that was factual, inspirational and informative. 'Transformation' is sometimes thought to be a journey of sorts, often personal. While Julie certainly references this in the piece, I think she was also looking at concepts that dwell more deeply in our societal beliefs. She posits a positive value when pain is transformed by the individual experiencing it, into something positive and generative. I find this thought provoking in general and personally fascinating. Were I to engage in a longer conversation on the subject, I would add that from my perspective, while flipping the frame on loss is paramount in today's world, carefully navigating this territory to avoid the systemic denial so rampant in our culture is also essential. Thank you Julie, for your words, and my opportunity to make commentary. Andrea Bredbeck http://www.Andreaspeak.blogspot.com