(bell dinging) (melancholy music) (typewriter clacking) - [Rebecca] I'm Rebecca Fogg, and this is "Beautiful Trauma."

(melancholy music) It is about human resilience and some of the many, many ways that we cope with adversity and try to make sense of it.

- So I gotta ask you about that day in 2006 when your hand was partially amputated.

It's painful even talking about it.

Do you remember what went through your head when it happened?

- Absolutely.

So first I heard a loud noise and something made me look at my right wrist and I see this gaping hole.

The mind quickly starts coming to solutions.

All right, I live alone.

I'm losing a lot of blood very fast.

You know, I'm standing in a giant puddle of blood already.

I need to save myself.

But before I sprang to action, there was this instant of reflection that that life that I was living is already over.

This next one, however long it lasts, begins now.

So already in that instant my brain was telling you, you've already suffered a death.

- Wow.

- You know, this is a clear demarcation.

There's gonna be before and there's gonna be after.

And there absolutely was after.

- [Jeremy] What does that mean to you, beautiful trauma?

- So much of it was unexpected and difficult and grueling.

I started noticing early on that there were also these amazing things that were happening.

You know, the people who were stepping up to take care of me, the things that I was learning.

And then of course it changed my life in a lot of positive ways.

And it just really struck me how unexpected it was to me that these wonderful things could coexist with these awful things.

And in fact, some of these wonderful things could only have happened because of this awful thing.

And so when I stepped back and wanted a title that I felt encapsulated everything, I felt that that was really my big gift from the experience was that I realized that, you know, the beauty and the trauma could coexist.

- Rebecca, thank you.

It's a really remarkable book.

- Thank you so much.

It was great to be here.

- And thank you for watching "A Word on Words."

I'm Jeremy Finley.

Remember, keep reading.

(bell dinging) The fact that you became a writer after having your hand blown apart is maybe the most pre-ordained thing that I can think of.

(Rebecca laughing)