The Healing Muse is SUNY Upstate Medical University's journal of literary and visual arts published annually by the Center for Bioethics and Humanities. Since 2001, The Healing Muse has published stories, poetry, and essays that focus on illness and medicine in order to foster stronger communication and understanding for those involved in all aspects of health care. Volume 12 introduces new authors and artists and a few old friends. They offer us full portraits of people caught in their own pivotal moment; we ache with some and triumph with others. But always walk away enriched and even ennobled by our shared humanity.