Pain is a heavy subject. It is fraught with emotion, with drama, with real-life tragedy and hardship. It is an especially difficult subject to edit—but even more so, it is a terribly difficult subject about which to write. However, in this section, you will meet eight women of fortitude and courage, a tribe of unrelated but glaringly honest writers who are willing to tear away the normal trappings of day-to-day life, where pain and tragedy are held close to the chest, and dive into the whirlpool that is so strikingly personal: suffering and tragedy and loss as it relates to illness.

It has been my privilege to read the many heartfelt pieces we received, and it has been a daunting but important task to choose those authors whose stories changed us. These eight writers will take you into their lives. You will meet their loving husbands, their precious daughters, their wives, and their innermost selves. You will walk with them on their rounds as physicians, in the forest as they contemplate their fears; you will be in the room as they struggle with their own losses and personal trials.

As a publication, we are honored to read about the real-life drama these authors have experienced. As readers, I truly hope you will find answers here, or a friend who seems to reach across time and space, a friend with whom you may feel a connection and a kinship, someone who shares your own journey of illness and loss—if only for a little while.

The written word is magnificent tool. Used deftly, as you will experience here, it can move us, change us, enlighten us, and give us hope.

It is with gratitude and respect that I thank these eight authors for sharing their hearts and minds and souls with all of us.

Grace Jasmine is the nonfiction editor of Please See Me.