During Hurricane Irma in 2017, a 90-foot oak tree split and fell into the middle of Amy Pence’s cottage in the old fishing village of Pine Lake, Georgia. A beam came down and hit her squarely in the head, knocking her unconscious. She kept hearing a voice telling her to get up. As she came to and saw the devastation, her mind went to unexpected, revelatory places. She recalls that she thought two things: “This is how people die,” and then, smiling, “I might die, and could death possibly be amazing? I almost laughed.”