Written by: Theo Boyd

I have never thought of myself as resilient. Of course, most people don’t realize what they are capable of until they are left with no other choice. Resilience is not something we aspire to, but more like a force we learn about after the fact. My entire life was summed up in the few precious moments that my world fell apart.

I had always felt secure, understood, and heard—until that day. My life changed in an instant.

Would I ever know happiness again?
Would I ever be hopeful again?
Would I survive this?
Did I have a shred of resilience in my body?

My World Fell Apart and Split Life Into “Before and After”

As I reflect on my words in “My Grief is Not Like Yours,” I see the girl I was. I know her well. She was a 47-year-old high school teacher whose world had fallen apart. I often get asked, “How do you move forward toward hope while still in grief?”

The answer is simple. You don’t—at first. It takes days, weeks, months, and years, and then it feels as if you start the pattern all over again. Those who are successful learn to move forward with grief as their new counterpart, as if it’s a new limb hanging on their shattered and frail frame.

Lying on my shower floor, water falling around me like a hard rain, I had two choices. I could stay there, drowning, or I could get up and do something with this brokenness. I knew that I was born to do something special with my life. I watched my parents help others in so many ways—through the church, in the community, and at home. I began talking about my grief openly.

I found meaning in reaching out and sharing my experiences. It was not only helping me but also the people I was reaching as well. I took that meaning in my life and turned it into serving others–that’s having a purpose. When you take the meaning in your life and use it to serve others, you have found your purpose.

This decision wasn’t easy–it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was resiliency in the making. With pen in hand, I began making sense of the scribbles and jots I had been recording during my losses.

I began to connect the words from my spiral notebook and restaurant napkins in an attempt to connect to the ones I had lost. “You won’t know where your writing will take you until you pick up the pen and see,” I had always told my students, and here I was doing just that.

After many long and sleepless nights, I finally had words that joined other words that made sentences that made paragraphs, and then… a book. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would write a book, much less a book about grief.

I Didn’t Let Grief Write My Story: I Wrote My Story

During my years after losing Momma on the farm up until I found Daddy, I was consumed with writing down all my thoughts, feelings, and fears. It was instrumental in my healing journey, and it still is. I haven’t stopped writing.

My second book, “Hope All the Way,” was just released, and it’s a beautiful recollection of all the signs I have witnessed while on this path. The signs that keep us going–sent from above. The signs of a word that we often lose sight of–hope.

When we are stuck in the darkness, we can’t see the light, but one day we will look up, and it’s right there, waiting for us.

I guess you could say hope has brought me home. I’m building a new home on my family farm. Integrating your grief is a healthy way to move into the future while carrying the past with you.

With each selection I make, I see parts of my childhood with the memories and the legacy that lives in each detail. I can’t wait to make this house a home, but it really already is.

My World Fell Apart, but I Am Still Here

It’s always been home, but it just took me a little time to realize that I can go back there with the quiet kind of strength that doesn’t always look like resilience but feels like it.

I know I’ll never feel completely whole again, but I don’t have to be. It’s okay to have a few cracks–that’s what makes us unique and beautiful. It’s in those cracks that light breaks through, and that is hope.

I have never thought of myself as resilient until now.

After navigating her own journey through loss, Theo Boyd has become a powerful voice for those seeking to turn heartache into hope. A certified grief educator and host of the Think Theo podcast, she draws on her teaching roots to offer practical, down-to-earth insights into the grieving process. Theo’s transformative storytelling has garnered 17 book awards, most recently naming her a 2025 Texas Rising Lone Star Author. Through her newest release, Hope All the Way: Discovering Divine Signs in Life After Loss, she continues her mission of guiding others to move through their pain and discover lasting purpose.