My Grief Is Not Like Yours: Theo Boyd on Layered Loss, Divine Signs & Radical Hope | EP 462

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Hi there.

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Hi.

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How are you?

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Good, how are you today?

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Good.

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Like your, like your whiteboard bike to thinkfio.com is at your website?

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Yes.

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Nice.

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Yes.

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Thank you.

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So where are you located?

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I'm in north central Texas.

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All right, cool.

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I'm in Ohio, gray, cold, rainy, Ohio.

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Oh man, we just long for that kind of weather.

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It's been hot and sunny here.

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And today we got our first rain in two months.

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Oh, wow.

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And our first clouds for two months.

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And it's wonderful.

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Yeah.

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I guess we all long for what we don't have.

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Yeah, this time of year, like it's what is today, Thursday.

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I think the last time we saw the sun was probably Sunday.

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Ah, yeah.

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So, we're only going to have this today or two and the sun's going to be back on Saturday.

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So, yeah.

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Well, it's good to meet you.

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Thank you for having our conversation today.

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So when we get started, I will read a short introduction and then we'll talk for probably 45 minutes or an hour or so.

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Do you have any questions before we get started?

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No.

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Okay.

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So, yeah, basically thing is I encourage you to talk as much as you'd like.

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So, this is your time.

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So, I will, like I said, I'll ask you questions, but feel free to just kind of ramble if you want to.

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I had someone there the other day I asked them.

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I think I asked them one question.

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They talked for like 40 minutes before I got to the second question, which was great.

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I like it.

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But I'm here to just kind of be here for you to help you carry the conversation.

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So, I'm going to do a mixture of recording.

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We are.

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So, if you're ready, we'll just get started.

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I'm ready.

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All right, cool.

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Hi there.

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Welcome to Grief to Growth.

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I'm your host Brian Smith.

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And whether you're a first time listener, you've been with me for a while.

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I'm so glad you're here.

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This show is all about helping you navigate the storms of life.

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Ask the big questions, who we are, why we're here, where we came from, and where we're going.

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But most of all, we'll find hope even in the midst of loss.

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Today's guest has lived through the unimaginable and emerged with a message of healing, resilience, and of deep unwavering hope.

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I'm honored to be joined by Phil Boyd, award-winning author, grief educator, and piecaster.

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You may know her from a raw and powerful memoir.

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My grief is not like yours.

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And now she's back with a brand new book, Hope All the Way, Discovering Divine Signs and Life After Loss.

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In 2019, Theo's life was changed forever when a tragic accident on a family farm claimed her mother's life, just weeks before her parent's 50th wedding anniversary.

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And shortly after, grief took another devastating turn when her father passed by suicide.

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And if that wasn't enough, her marriage also fell apart during this time, leaving her to rebuild her life in the wake of overwhelming loss.

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Theo's new book is released in December 2nd, or recorded this on November 20th, 2025.

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It's more than a memoir.

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It's a guide to navigating grief, rediscovering purpose, and learning the trust and hope is still possible.

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All the things we talk about here on grief to growth.

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In today's episode, we'll explore the personal journey that inspired her to write the second book.

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And we'll dive in the insights for the National Grief Study that she conducted with the Center for Generational Kinetics.

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We'll talk about why grief looks so different for everyone, how to recognize divine signs that may be guiding us, and how journaling and professional help can support the healing process.

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We'll also touch on how to survive the holiday season while grieving, and how to support those that we love who are hurting.

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So whether you're grieving the loss of a parent, a partner, a marriage, or just trying to understand what hope looks like after loss, this conversation is for you.

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And when you're done listening, I invite you to head over to my substack, grieftogrowth.substack.com.

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Dale, you'll find an article about today's episode, where we can continue the conversation together.

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I'd love to hear your thoughts, and you can interact with me and others in the grief to the growth community.

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So would that like to welcome Theo Boyd?

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Hi, thank you.

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It's good to have you here, Theo.

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Your story, and I talked to a lot of people that have been through lots of tragedies.

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Your story is filled with unimaginable tragedy.

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The loss of both your parents, the end of your marriage.

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So how did you pick up the pieces and start moving your way forward?

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Wow.

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How long do we have?

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We've got quite a while, so yeah, take your time.

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Well, you know, a lot of people, especially with the second book coming out on hope, they're like, how have you been hopeful this whole time?

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And I'm like, hello, I've not been hopeful this whole time.

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But it kind of creeped in on me.

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It's just been a really crazy journey when it first started in 2019.

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When I got the phone call, you know, I was just a school teacher.

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I was home for the summer.

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And I got a phone call that there'd been an accident on the family farm.

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And when I got there, I learned what had happened.

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And I couldn't even, I couldn't even fathom it.

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And I was hearing my dad and the ambulance.

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And he was inconsolable, of course.

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And from that moment, my life completely changed.

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But it wasn't in those early moments that I really knew what was going to be going on the next few years.

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You know, you have to get through that early onset, that fresh grief.

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So I always tell people a fresh greever is not going to feel hopeful.

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You can just forget about that.

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Because grief is just like that black paint that I talk about.

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And my grief is not like yours.

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The black paint that coats you and covers you and takes a while for that to dry and ship, ship away so that you see the rays of light come through.

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Those are the little specks of hope that are coming through.

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But it's very hard to be in fresh grief and to see any form of light.

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And that's where I was.

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And I was just writing how I was feeling.

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And a lot of those first feelings are in that first book.

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But all along the way, there's been signs, there's been things that brought me back on the path.

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You know, I'd get off in a ditch and then hear something would happen and bring me right back in.

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And so I started recording those on restaurant napkins and my phone.

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And I was like, there's all these things happening.

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And I know that it's God, my mom and dad, all bringing back to the path that God's intended for me this whole time.

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And I use this a lot.

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But I think it was Mark Twain that said the two most important days in your lives, the day that you were born and the day you know why you were born.

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And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was born to write that first book, that grief book, I've never written a book before.

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I was a creative writing teacher, an English teacher, but I'd never written a book.

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And I never thought I was going to ever write a book, especially on grief.

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So it's crazy where your life will take you.

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I was 47 years old, high school English teacher.

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And now I'm out helping who I once was.

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And that that's beautiful to me that I'm able to carry on the story of my parents, their beautiful love story, and the wonderful testimony and ministry they had in our community.

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And keep that going, keep that legacy going to help other people.

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And my parents are still helping people even in their day.

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Yeah, that's awesome.

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And I like what you said.

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And it's really important that we understand that people that are listening to understand.

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We don't go from that tragic accident to writing a book called hope all the way.

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There's a lot of steps in between there.

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So your mother passed an accident on the farm and your father survived that.

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And then how was he after your mother passed?

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I know he eventually ended up succumbing to suicide.

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He I told everybody at mom is a visitation at the funeral home that night.

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I said I lost daddy in that accident too.

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Wow.

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And he also had a little bit of dementia.

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It wasn't much.

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But when the accident happened, the doctors said that it catapulted him like six to eight years in his dementia.

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It just that form of stress the body just can't handle.

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And daddy was over the next three years.

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He was on and off his his funny trying to be funny self.

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He was always a comedian.

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And he was just such a charismatic individual.

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He is a great preacher and he wrote poetry and short stories and beautiful sermons.

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And he preached so many funerals and married so many people in our area and everybody knew him.

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And he you know, after 2019 and mom was accident, then COVID came.

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So that was an isolation that really I feel like was just, oh, it just really was a horrible time for a lot of elderly people, but especially my dad because he was just he craved to be around people and to just he was always a people person, but then to be isolated and not really understanding what was going on because he was like, I don't understand COVID and he didn't understand why people couldn't come around.

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And so that was a really hard time.

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And then, you know, a couple of years after that, I kind of dropped my guard a little bit the first few weeks after mama's accident, we were all on guard.

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We got all the guns out of the house.

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We were, you know, we were he had told the sheriff the night of the accident that he was going to take his lap, but he did not do it because he didn't want my sister not to wonder what happened out there.

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And he lasted three years longer than I thought he would.

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But I had dropped my guard.

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I didn't know about certain guns and that were still in the home.

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And then on Father's Day morning, 2022, I went in to check on him and he had taken his life with a firearm.

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Oh, wow.

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So sorry.

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Yeah, my my wife grew up in Kentucky.

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So I understand that the guns and my father-in-law had guns all over the place and ended up a dementia.

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We we had to take the guns away and get them out of the house.

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But after we took them out of the house, we found out he had guns in other places that we didn't know about.

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Isn't that crazy?

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I think they're pulling one over on us and they are.

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Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

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So I know also your your marriage fell apart after after this.

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So what would happen with that?

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You know grief is a great filter.

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It will bring everything to the surface.

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So if anything was wrong before and you thought you had it handled, grief's gonna bring all that rata.

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Yeah.

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And you know we had had a few problems not much in the past, but grief does some crazy things in a marriage.

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And I found out that he had been unfaithful during the grief when I was staying with my dad and you know everybody grief's in their own way, right?

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So I am we had to start going to counseling and then that didn't work and it was just like that pattern kept continuing.

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So I we finally decided we were gonna get a divorce so I had to go through that loss and that grief and explaining that to my dad and not wanting to hurt him anymore.

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And it's just like it was just a compounding loss after loss and my counselor died suddenly in February of 2020.

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So mom and dad of july of 2019 and then in February 2020, my counselor suddenly died.

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And I've been going to her for 18 years and just you know we tell everybody to exercise your body but we need to be exercising this.

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So I went to her for just minor laugh things, you know, blended marriage, raising a teenage daughter but never anything of this magnitude until that night of the accident.

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And I talked to her and she I was worried about my dad because he's a minister but he's saying all these words that I've never heard him say and didn't even know he knew them.

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And she just said let him say the words that he needs to say those are the words that carry the weight of his pain.

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And I'll never forget that and I'll talk about it in that first book that we need to as a society be a little easier on grievers that are actually grieving and showing their emotion and showing that's what they're doing is the only way that they their body knows how to handle it.

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Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with sometimes when it's shut down people's emotions thinking well don't say those things and you know but those emotions need to be expressed and need to come out and as long as they're expressing them that's that's actually a good thing.

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Ryan I'm so glad she gave me that advice on that night because otherwise I would have went in there and said you need to stop you know but I didn't I didn't silence him which which was hard on anybody that was in the house very hard night.

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I never want to relive that night ever again.

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It was just an out of misery and you know just shock complete shock.

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But now I don't remember what your original question was.

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Well, we were talking about you know the fact that but you're you know these things compounding on top of each other and you mentioned, you know, yeah, your counselor passing during this time so for people that have been through multiple losses they might have a little bit of feeling but explain what that feels like that cascading grief you know the compounded grief.

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Yes, it was rapid fire loss.

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Yeah, you know I lost mom and then my counselor and then you know then and the wall is going up.

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I'm building this pretty strong wall with all these losses to protect myself and I'm not grieving.

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I've delayed my grief because I didn't want my dad to hurt anymore by watching me grief so so I would just kind of put it away.

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I'll deal with it later and I was actually jealous of people that were getting to grief because I didn't have that luxury.

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I was staying with my dad making sure he's going to be okay.

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Gotta go back to teaching school soon and I had a student or I had a teacher.

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Gosh, I just drew a blank with that substitute teacher taking over my classes for about six weeks and I had family leave from the school that I was teaching at but I knew eventually I was going to need to get back to that but you know I was putting it all on hold and then the counselor dies and of course I had to walk out of the classroom when I learned that during class.

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I just was in shock and then my marriage falling apart that summer of 2020 and then we try to get into counseling and then in 21 those years are all very fuzzy to me but what's not fuzzy is the journaling.

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I was journaling it all.

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I was writing it all down and one of my school teacher friends when I got back to the classroom she walked by and had read just a little bit.

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She said I hope it's okay but Theo you have to write a grief book and that was the seed that got planted and then I just started watering it and nourishing it and nurturing it and then a book came and May 9th of 2023 it was released and I never dreamed that it would help as many people as it has and never in my wildest dreams did I think my healing which was writing was going to help somebody else that just never even crossed my mind and I think that's the beauty in all of it is it was just my raw feelings about everything and then to see people read it and relate to my writing that's the fuel that keeps me going and I just love when somebody comes up at a book event and says I read this and I read it to my son at his grave site he died in a car accident and another lady I bought 10 of these and gave them to my family at Christmas and said here read it that's how I feel I don't want to talk about it yeah you know so I'm able to give a voice to the voiceless through my words and that brings me joy yeah absolutely you know it's like we need to be given permission to grieve a lot of times as you said sometimes people want to shut us up because it makes them feel bad or they think that you know if we express these things that's a bad thing and so when people read a book but somewhere else is expressing the grief you said it's kind of giving voice to that and giving them permission to use their own voice the title you book is my grief is not like yours what did where did that come from I like that I'm glad you asked me and early on fresh in my grief of my mom people would come up to me very well intention friends and family and they would offer me you know advice or books or tell me try to relate to me like well when my mom died I did this yeah and when they would tell me things or compare I just couldn't relate unless you know unless their mom had been run over by a tractor that their dad was driving I couldn't relate and all that kept echoing in my mind was my grief is not like yours my grief is not like yours and I thought if I'm feeling this way there have to be millions of other people feeling this way and that's unheard and unwitnessed and I felt like my mom was being forgotten I felt like all of a sudden she was an individual on earth that when she died she was just put in a category and I just felt so unheard so I said you know what that's the title of my book my grief is not like yours and the reason I titled it that is it so so whoever holds the book whoever has that book can own that title for themselves and they can write their own pain on its pages because after each chapter I've got the journaling questions and where they can write in their own grief so my intention was not so that people would just read about my grief and my story it was so they could have that title for themselves and feel like they can own their own grief yeah you mentioned when your mother passed you felt like she was no longer an individual she's put into a category what do you mean by that it just felt so and for those of you out there listening you may understand what I'm saying but you know when she was on earth she lost her hearing at 18 months old she was completely deaf but a beautiful communicator she was the most present person in a room ever she was always living in the moment never complained she was just such a positive and great model of what it's like to actually live in the present to live today and when she died it was all of a sudden everybody well when my mom died and when my mom died and maybe you could and I was like wait we need to just talk about just her right now she just died let's just talk about her so I have an exercise in the first bit where I call it a hundred things and I just sat at my dad's kitchen table and I remember I got a piece of notebook paper out and I just started numbering 1-100 and I asked her to write down everything that came top of mind about my mom because I felt like she was being forgotten I was like mama loved me mama loved Barney that was their dog mama loved daddy mama loved the color blue mama loved Jesus you know I just went down and you don't have to do a hundred things you can do 10 but if you're feeling unheard and witnessed then maybe get a piece of paper out get your phone out and just do the top 10 things about that person that you're missing and all of a sudden by having it on paper you're bringing them to life again and their memory and who they were so that's that's how it felt that she was just in a category dad in an accident you know I love that because you know one of the fears that we have when we lose someone is that they're going to be forgotten that they're going to be put into a category as you said or and you know for people that are talking to grievers I think it's important for us to remember they people mean well we I'm going to put myself in there because I I still stumble over things to say to people that are in grief even though I've been through it and that's what I do so and we're trying to relate by saying oh when my mother died or when I lost my dog or whatever but you're right every single grief event is unique the person that you lost is unique your relationship with that person is unique so my grief is not like yours the art there aren't five neat stages of grief you know and everybody doesn't go through it the same way if you can resist the urge to say anything that's what's best the most memorable moments for me early and each of my griefs is when people would just come and sit with me just be with me and just be present and as I would tell my 10th grade high school students when I was teaching just vip it and honestly the greever would prefer that you're not saying anything anyway so you don't have to worry what do I say what do I do you don't have to buy any big thing you don't have to do any big thing you just need to be present do not underestimate the power of your presence and in thinking about my grief is not like yours in each unique loss grief is not a competition and I've had a lot of people ask me which which loss was hardest for you right you know that grief is not a competition if you ask a man that has lost his child what's the hardest loss the hardest grief he's going to say the loss of a child if you ask a man that's just lost his wife what's the hardest top of loss he's going to say the loss of his spouse if you ask someone that just lost their pet what's the hardest top of loss they're gonna say losing my pet of 20 years or 18 years but it's not a competition every loss or let me rephrase this the loss that is the hardest the loss that is the most um how would I say this the loss that is the hardest is the loss that you are experiencing the loss that is the hardest is the loss that you are experiencing and it's not a competition and when we say that we shut some people up which I think is a good thing and we kind of bring it all back to you know I lost my mom and my dad but somebody else has lost a daughter somebody else has lost her son I lost mine in a tragic accident somebody else lost him in a flood like here in Texas and you know and when you try to make it a competition and say this loss is harder than this loss then all of a sudden theirs feels discounted it feels it feels like it didn't count it feels less less than yeah that every loss is significant and every loss is what's the hardest loss for you yeah that's so well said you know I remember when our daughter passed um she was 15 and and she passed suddenly in her sleep um so that was a sudden loss and it was totally unexpected but she had a friend who was I think Victoria's about a year older than Shana and she had clear blood stomach she had a brain cancer and so she passed slowly and she was exactly I actually expected to pass before Shana did so I remember my wife and I went to to her funeral which was six months after Shana's we were we came up we're talking about like so which would be worse to be Victoria's parents to go through losing her slowly and let you deter or to be asked where we didn't have a chance to say goodbye where it was just like she's here and she's gone and we both real heights it's like they both suck it's like we don't have to compare them you know they they both just suck and there's no there's no comparing them it's it's one of the things you just can't do you came to that realization because you were literally in it yeah and I think until somebody's actually in it they can't understand they can't understand a grief and a loss like that you know they haven't experienced it I myself looking back before 2019 all I'd ever really lost were pets and my grandparents and that's kind of an expected loss I was sad but it didn't like not me to the ground and I've never really thought that much about it and I realized now some of the things I've said in the past before this happened to me are probably not the right things I should have just zipped it yeah yeah you know it's one of those things you know you don't learn until you you actually you know go through it and because I'm part of helping parents heal and I've talked to so many parents who have lost children and I see people saying oh you don't understand my loss is the worst and it is for them right you know but but they'll say that you know well my I lost a child to drugs or suicide or to cancer or whatever and I've seen it all and it's interesting because on the one hand our losses are universal I mean I lost evolves lost but they're also completely unique as you said you know you lost your mother but you didn't lose her to a tractor that your father was driving that that adds a layer of complexity that other people are not going to be able to understand exactly and I'm so glad you you get it you know grievers usually get it we unfortunately we're baptized by fire and we we immediately understand but early in my grief I was really battling all this in my head and my dad was not really himself so I couldn't really talk to him I'd always talk to my dad about anything he was my minister and my father right but I couldn't even talk to him because it would number one it was sad it would bring him you know I didn't want to reach traumatizing on any way or let him know I was hurting but I had so many questions and so I did turn to my cousin he's a minister and he preached both my parents funerals and when I have a question faith-based I'll talk to him and I talked a good game there for a while too you know I've always been a Christian and I don't remember a time ever not being but my faith was very important to me until then and when my dad was pretty much cursing God and said there must be no God then I thought oh well then I'm out and I talked a good game for a while but every time that I got off that road a sign would happen and it bring me right back so I gave up on my faith but my faith never gave up on me okay all right I want to come back to that so when you talked about um I love that your illustration of grief is like being painted with black paint and then it that drying and cracking and eventually peeling but I could imagine you know after your father's loss the loss of your counselor and the loss of your your marriage I think I've got no your your mother's right your mother first then your counselor then your father or then your marriage then your father right yeah that's right I would imagine every time it's like the paint's getting dumped on you again you know is kind of our journal to get the pain out which is what I was urged my two my students to do get it out of you and on to the paper first 10 minutes of class and kids come in get out of piece of paper write it all down I don't want to hear it we've got stuff to learn yeah write it down whatever's bothering you write it down and then shred it I had a shredder at the front of the classroom that could go shred it it's not going to be graded but just get it out and it was called a free ride a 10 minute free ride so I started doing those free rides oh wow for myself you know my mom died I was doing a hundred things and journaling some stuff about her and about what daddy was going through and then when my counselor died I started writing down the things that she had shared with me all through the years I didn't want to forget them and then when my marriage fell apart oh boy that one you know that wasn't an actual death but it was a loss that was so significant that one really dropped me to my knees because you lose the one you think it's going to be there for you the most with there for you the least so it's just a betrayal and so I was journaling all this stuff about that but every time it was a different feeling but it was still the same and how I coped with it I would get out of piece of paper and get it out of me and write it on that page yeah well you mentioned your marriage you know not being in death it is in a sense it's it's the death of a relationship it's a death of what you hoped and expected it's it's the death of you as as that person as you relate to the other person I was divorced many many years ago so you know grief is involves loss or death and that is that is a death so it's another thing just compiled on top of you know and other things so you you mentioned your father was your minister and you would confide in him and you mentioned your cousin because I think grief really has to be witnessed and a lot of times we will turn to our significant other our spouse if we have one so how did you find how did you find someone to to witness your grief well I have a group of friends and I call them very blonde mothers and they are and just these great and what's crazy about them is they owned a little dress shop in the store where I was a school teacher I've gotten to know them but they also own funeral homes and they're just a really hilarious group of ladies but I call them my very blonde mothers and they swooped in and took care of me they were a godsend and one of them would call me every morning and every night a morning check in and a nighttime check in and they came and stayed with me on numerous occasions and spent the night and they were here if I wanted to talk or if I didn't want to talk and so you've got to surround yourself with those f-words and I talk about that in chapter 11 of the first book my grief is not like yours it's called more f-words and that's your faith your friends your family food son fellowship my foundation and the very blonde mothers were instrumental in my journey because they're the ones that told me it's going to be okay you're going to come out on the other side of this god has a plan for you and they were just constantly there every day just perfectly planned helping me with these positive thoughts and getting me through so you've got to you've got to rely on those friends and you'll find out who the real tried and true friends are believe me yeah you know the ones they're really are there to listen and the problem in america is that we're not letting people talk we're not listening and so their grief is not getting witnessed and that's what's wrong when you see anger you see you know I went down one rabbit hole one day and I researched and the shooters in america and almost every one of them had some form of loss in their life that hadn't been dealt with yeah yeah so that that is very concerning to me because I just feel like grief you know we are starting a conversation I'm noticing it a little bit more in media but in my research study that I did with the second book 79% of grieving americans wish that the media would talk more about grief and how to cope yeah then we talk about the loss we talk about the accident the fatality the drownings the floods we talk about the actual thing right but then we don't follow up with okay here's what's happening now in this world they've lost their family a year ago you know or they lost their daughter they lost their parents you know we need to follow up more and how did they do that how are they doing so well so I get that question a lot how are you doing so well and I'll take them back to those f-words and it may sound simple but you've got at least if you don't have a friend then you need to be a friend you need to find one person one person that you know is going to give you the time and let you talk and let you get it out get a piece of paper start writing it out and if you're not able to afford counseling because a counselor is a great tool for healing then go to your local church or grief share group try to find a group of people that are experiencing you know sadness like you are because I've got news for you sadness is a very normal human emotion but we like to shut that down real quick here in american label it depressed suicidal sometimes it's not that now if it is yes you need to seek their appropriate help for that right but most of the time a greever is just sad and I just kept asking myself because I was getting labeled a lot well her dad committed suicide about she's going to I was not suicidal I was not depressed I was just sad and I felt like when did sad become bad it's a very normal human emotion the most human thing you can do is grieve yeah that's a really really important point you know because in the DSM-5 the diagnostic manual for you know they they diagnosed this thing called prolonged grief disorder which probably makes some sense I guess but you know as you said grieving and being sad doesn't mean you're depressed as in like a drug is going to help you or something and I remember when I first heard about this this prolonged grief disorder they were so excited because I thought well if we treat grief like a disorder like it like a drug addiction then we can find a drug that we can give people and the grief will go away and it's like this is not this is not a brain chemistry thing this is a the brain chemistry might change but it's because we have a reason and I went to a doctor I remember I was I was switching doctors at the time for some reason and I went to an older it was a guy but it was an older doctor and he said how are you feeling you know blah blah and he started asking about my other than my physical health which is great because most doctors don't and I said did you feeling any anxiety or depression I said yeah and he goes oh really and he goes you know what's going on I said well my daughter passed away and he goes okay well that's normal you're going to feel that I'm like great I appreciated that then I ended up going to a younger doctor a little bit after that it was it was a young woman and she asked me the same question and I told her and she goes oh well maybe we can prescribe something for you I was like no I don't I don't need any medication it's normal for me to feel this way when I lost my daughter yeah grief is not a disorder right that's like saying when they did that I was furious because two weeks after my mom's accident gail diagnosed me with complicated grief two weeks and if I had not gotten that diagnosis I don't think I'd be sitting here talking to you today because when when she told me I had complicated grief all of a sudden I felt like I belonged yeah I felt like I wasn't going crazy it's not just me they're actually a name for this right and now that they've taken that away and you have to have been experiencing what I was going through after two weeks for 12 months before you can get the diagnosis right and into call it a disorder that's like saying if you have ever loved anyone you have a disorder yeah exactly yeah exactly and there is a complicated grief you know it makes sense because you talked about we lose a pet we expect it and typically if we lose a pet or a grandparent who's elderly we accept it we move on we don't need any kind of you know assistance but having your father you know have an accent with your mother with a tractor that comes with a whole set of things and then these and then when these things compound on top of each other that's when we might need to reach out for some help but it doesn't mean it's a medical thing and it doesn't mean a pill is going to help right and I'm just so you know I want to fight that fight but I'm just gonna wait and hope that they come to me and say hey Theo we heard you did a research study about it and yeah yeah I did I've got the data to back up what I'm saying but and prolonged grief is not a disorder it's the most normal thing that your body could be doing I would actually be worried if you were not grieving moments you will always grieve your beautiful daughter yeah that's a fact yeah that's a fact because your grief is the love yeah that's that's exactly right I do want to talk to you mentioned earlier the the F's and one of them was faith and I'm always curious when people have a faith in your father was your minister and you said you're your Christian but you said you went through a time of where maybe that was tested what was that like for you it was very empty it was scary and I didn't have my dad to talk to about it and he's the one I would always talk to about it but you know talking to my cousin and getting that reassurance that what I was experiencing was very normal for us to question God and to be angry at God God can handle it God you know you will hear people say well God won't give you more than you can handle but that's not even biblical it's not even in the Bible right and God may give you more than you can handle and my dad is proof of that yeah but that doesn't mean it's not still part of his plan he still Romans 828 says all things work together for good for them that love God all things for God all things doesn't mean all good things it means all things he will turn them to work for good and now I see this book and I remember my sister calling me just a few weeks after mom is accident she knew I was starting to write a book and she said I think that that all things is your book God's gonna use that to help people and so their beautiful love story now is helping other people people all never even know the ripple effect right right so your your faith you know you said it was tested but you said you're I forgot how you put it it was so it was so well said you said what did you say about your faith I gave up on my faith yes never gave up on me yes yeah I think that's I think that's beautiful I sent me a sign every time and I would just it's almost like it slapped me in the face yeah it's like hey wake up I'm here we're gonna do this together so let's we we've talked about your your first book let's let's move in and talk more about the signs and the hope so before your your mother transitioned did you believe in signs what were your thoughts about that I you know I kind of was I had some friends that that's all they would do is believe in every little thing is a reason or a son and I was like yeah you know and I never really thought much about it like I'm trying to remember now when my grandparents died did my mom look for signs from her mom and and I I never really thought much about it because I've never been in it right and so now that I'm in it I started to open my eyes and like I said some of the signs had to slap me in the face and I'll go ahead and spoiler on the second book that releases December 2nd but I was in my bathroom when not and I have one of those echo dots or the Alexa you know and I always like to listen to I'm taking my makeup off getting ready for a bath or a shower I always like to listen to some classical piano and that's all it ever plays in there maybe some Christmas music at Christmas time but I said and this was back the summer I think it was the summer just a year after daddy and dad and I said Alexa classical music and piano and this song came on not classical music piano and it was by Jimmy Durante or Durante and it says made the love that you've shown and I mean it's like it was just it's like he was talking to me and I didn't think anything of it at first and I just said Alexa off because I was just going to restart it right it wouldn't turn off and every time I said Alexa off it got louder and I said and I videoed it so that I just so that I could go back I wasn't making this up I videoed it and I go Alexa off as articulate as I could and it got louder oh wow and it played the whole song my the love that you've shown my the love be shown to you and may you surround yourself it was almost like daddy or mama was letting me know they're there their love was surrounding me and it was a song I've never heard in my life I'd never played it before and I had to like google the song but every time I said Alexa off it got louder and then when the song was over it just turned off I didn't say Alexa off it just turned off oh wow and I'll never forget where I was and how it felt and I smiled and I was like they're all around me there there's you know they're they're here and so the signs in my book are lines that you cannot easily discount and I'll give you another one and this one is just so huge and it's just so beautiful so my dad was a farmer and a preacher a farmer rancher and a preacher we were peanut farmers and my mom was deaf she lost her hearing when she was 18 months old due to a half-ever well I have now found a new love so it is possible to love after loss and guess what he's the farmer just like my dad lives about 30 minutes from my home and he's deaf oh wow wow wow yeah I mean that was just like he and I both to this day we talk about it all the time my mom and dad were up there like give her somebody and my dad's like give her a farmer and then my mom's like and he's deaf and then God says yes letters so she's not alone so I do have somebody that I share movies with and dinner with and his family's just been so wonderful to me you know it's beautiful and I talk about him in the second book and what a beautiful sign that was from above you can't discount that yeah well congratulations on that yeah so it's interesting because you know I grew up my grandfather was my pastor and we never talked about things like science I didn't know anything about you know science or people being you know still being around I was like you die you go to heaven you're you're not here exactly so when these signs started coming through but you said you had friends that were we're into that so I guess you were like okay well I guess this is real I started reading some books on it and I started to reading some books and about signs that other people were experiencing and still being very discerning because I grew up it sounds like you like you did and dad never talked about signs you know only thing you need to worry about is God what his plan is for you right but I do feel that God used these signs of hope to get me back up because I was down in the dirt I was buried so I thought but I was actually just planted yeah yeah well the thing is you know we talked earlier about like you know people say God won't give you more than you can handle which we know is not biblical but the wrong stone said you can't always get what you want but you get what you need and that's what I always say it's like you know if we may not get what we want but if we look at our loved ones our angels guides God whatever they are there helping us leading us giving us those signs if we open up our eyes to them just just kind of encourages you know as we're moving a longer way yeah and I talk about angels in this second book I have a whole chapter I feel like I needed to talk about it because I was almost writing to myself but I'd always referred to my parents as guardian angels now over my daughter and I'd always referred to some other people as angels but the truth is God's had the same number of angels from the beginning of creation until now they're just messengers of his and actually for us as Christians to be considered an angel would be a downgrade because angels cannot even receive God's salvation and they are simply the messengers that God sends and like you said to protect us sometimes and and I do believe as in the Bible many times angels would take on human form and I do believe that that still can go on and I've read a lot of books on it and I talk about it in the book yeah so so you know it's kind of I keep using this word a lot but it was my one key word for book number one and it is for book number two and it's beautiful beautiful beautiful was the last word that my mom typed to me on her phone when she texted me the word beautiful oh wow yeah yeah so you I know you did a grief project and you you touched about that earlier what is what is your project what did you do well I was at a seminar with a brand company that I'm a part of in Nashville a little over two years ago and one of their guest speakers was Jason Dorsey and he runs the center for generational kinetics out of Austin Texas okay and he asked the audience and what's the topic because he's talking about his research he is what's the topic you would have his research and I just raised my hand really quick and said grief and he said great talk to me so afterwards I talked to him he said I've never researched that in America and he googled really quick stateofgrief.com and it wasn't even you know we went to go daddy and I secured that site really quick so you can go to stateofgrief.com right now I'm download the full study okay and there's a QR code in the back of the new book and I cite several of the findings in the margins of the new book but as a school teacher I always taught my students that you can't really speak or write about something until you've researched it and I feel like since I'm writing about grief I need to know about it so I hired the company it cost me more than my first house but that's how passionate that I was about getting this done and after my dad had passed he left me some money from the farm and I felt like God was saying you used this and they did it took over a year and a half and it's a very in-depth national study of a thousand participants from all generations and all ethnicities that have experienced loss and we were it was painstaking it was tedious but we got some great findings and it was not really a shock to me because I thought we were already in a pretty bad state of grief in America but it was surreal to actually see it in black and white so what was surprising to you what was shocking to you like 79 percent of grieving more about grief and how to cope 70 percent here I've got I'm going to pull them up right here and just read you my top ones and yeah 68 sorry 68 percent of grieving Americans say they avoided people or isolated themselves after their most recent grief loss or tragedy 64 percent of grieving Americans think about the grief trauma or pain in their life more than once a day and 42 percent of grieving Americans have grappled with thoughts of suicide after their most recent loss oh wow yeah it's a law and I know our suicide right in this country is going up yeah yeah those are really yeah there's our shocking numbers and and what we do know is that we don't teach people how to deal with grief either we don't teach people how to deal with grievers and we don't teach people personally how to deal with grief so I think a lot of times we do feel isolated and we feel clueless you know what do I do what am I supposed to expect you know when I'm going through this people want to know what's normal which is interesting because it's different for everybody but there are some some general things that kind of you know come along with it you can probably expect to feel sad you know it's not it's not a bad thing to feel sad I wish they taught a class in high school about it because in most high schools unfortunately there will be some traumatic accident and there are some type of loss where those school is going to have a collective grief where they're all feeling it or there's things going on in America that the students are feeling there's a collective grief among them so I wish they did have a class where they teach them this is what's normal but instead and another shocking study is that the majority of the people that are isolating themselves in that percentage is Gen Z which is our 21 to 26 year olds I believe okay the Gen Z generation is not grieving they're hiding it isolating shoving it to the side not grieving so why is that shocking because guess what they're doing right now they're starting families yeah and so what are their children going to do where are we going to be when their children do not grieve yeah it's like we're going backward you know it's like our parents generation didn't express a lot of emotion you know they didn't they didn't they just kind of suck things up and I've talked to people who's like maybe their grandmother their mother lost the child for example and they're like they never spoke about it again and they but they they came a very changed person our generation we were taught a little bit more to express things but it seems like it's kind of going the other way with the with the isolation which is a very a very sad thing so this study that you've done hopefully well you know some people start to look at that and and realize this is a problem because grief is of all the things that we're going to experience in life it's one of the most almost guaranteed to be universal if you live long enough it is universal we're all going to experience a loss at some point if you're here so we deny it though we bury our heads in the sand and we don't think it's an important skill important thing to learn about yeah we we just take it for granted and that everybody's going to figure out how to figure it out themselves but a lot of people don't have the foundation like what I had such a strong foundation built on my faith and my mom and dad and you know everything was really pretty perfect for my childhood and so I feel like since I was blessed with that gift that wonderful foundation of a great mother and father strong characters and my faith that it is my duty now to use my voice to help those that didn't have that yeah yeah that's that's that's awesome that you that you do that you write that hope is the missing ingredient in life after loss so what is it that helped you to feel hope again I know you talked about your support system you talk about your faith was there anything else and and explain why you think hope is the missing ingredient oh when we're first grieving and first grievers we everything's hopeless there's no I didn't even remember that word hope I just I didn't even remember the word when somebody said it to me the first time that I heard it was when I had entered one of my favorite things to do and I tell people all the time my mom always said hobbies make you happy you have to keep putting yourself into doing something doing your hobby doing what brings you joy and what brings me joy is writing contest I love entering writing contest I love submitting an essay to some crazy contest because now we have the internet we can find contest everywhere and it's just fun for me I love the competition I'm very competitive so it's fun whether I win or not we're just fun to have the anticipation of maybe I will and I have one several so it's a lot of fun but I remember a friend of mine saying well it's okay just keep sending it in and just have hope that that you'll win one of them and I thought hope that's what I'm doing when I send in something to a writing competition I have hope and and then when signs would happen like the butterfly that's another sign I'll talk about in that was very early after my mom's accident this butterfly this very same butterfly every night in the same part of my backyard would kind of sit on my hand and have a picture of it in the book every night and I just was like that dad is hope trying to show me that life still exists life is for the living we're still here for a reason and I've got it I've got to keep seeing the hope my mom and dad did so many things for so many people and I you know I'm 53 now I was 47 48 49 writing that first book I've got a lot of years left that I need and to show my daughter I have one daughter she's and at the time she was at A&M University and then during all those somehow she got herself into law school and she's now an attorney in Houston Texas and through all that she is hope no she is hope so hope is always there here's the big news flash for everybody you can give up and think everything's hopeless and that's okay you're gonna have to do that for a time if you've been through something bad it's hopeless it's dark but eventually you'll see little rays a lot when that black paint that's covering you starts to chip away right that's hope and hope is always there it's just waiting for you to see it yeah wow that's beautiful all of the way you said that the lighthouse is always on the shore but when you're out in the darket see you can't see it right but it's still there shining you just have to wait till the fog lifts a little bit then you can see it yeah I think that's beautifully beautifully said and and hope I think that's the one thing that we always need if we if we lose hope now again we can lose it for a while but you have to get that hope back if we that's what human needs is we need that to survive we need to know that something good can still come and when you're in that early grief you know and it's this is what's important to understand you you will lose sight of the hope it will be like the black paint's completely covered it doesn't mean it's gone but you just thought sight of it I think it's a beautiful image yeah thank you you talk about journaling I know it's been an important part of your your journey you're a writer you talk about writing and I know people will say well I'm not a writer I don't know how to write I've never journaled how do I get started what advice do you have for people that are in that position you know writing comes easy to me so it's not lost on me that for some people because I was a writing teacher so my students I had students that were just like I can't write miss I just can't I can't do it and I would urge you even though you say you can't write to just get out of pen and paper if you're able to and just start writing a little bit of what's in your head just a little bit and see where that goes but if it's not going anywhere that's fine some other outlets for grief are finding that one confidant if you have one confidant it could be your dog my dog he's heard everything he's been with me every step of the way you've got to find an outlet for your pain it could be going to hobby lobby and going down the craft aisle finding one thing that strikes you that you want to start doing you've got hobbies make you happy you've got to have something that's moving you to have a reason to get up in the morning and go have cup of coffee with a group and if you're not part of any group like I said if you don't have a friend become a friend go to your local coffee shops and go talk to people you know daddy did that daddy said daddy never even had a cell phone but he'd go out and just start talking to a bunch of people we'd be at a gas station and getting gas and I'd say mama where daddy going she'd say oh he's over there with those motorcycle men and he'd be standing in the middle of this big motorcycle group and he'd be laughing and he'd be preaching and he would talk to people and he always said they always say don't talk to people but when I talk to people they want to talk so just start talking to people and they're going to talk to you and you much it's headed off with somebody and have a friend that you can start talking to go to a local grief show group start you know baby steps if you don't feel like doing anything but pulling the covers up over your head do that but just know that tomorrow's another day and you need to try again because there's a reason that you're here and it might be just for one person in the future that's going to benefit from your life so don't be too hard on yourself either give yourself grace and grief and give others grace around you for what they may say or do yeah but you know just give yourself some grace but try some baby steps find a hobby baking I love cooking and baking my mom's recipes decorating I like thinking about decorating for the holidays and shopping might be one if you've got the finances and you can do that and go find a friend or be a friend go to your local this is one thing daddy always did and we went every other sunday daddy had a service there and then daddy and mama would go during the week visit your local nursing homes daddy always said if you're feeling bad about anything in your life go to the nursing home and help those people feel better and all of a sudden the focus is not on you anymore it's on them that's when you're going to see the transition for yourself from hopelessness to hope when you can put it off and out of you and help somebody else yeah i think that's awesome and you know you talked about a lot of things you mentioned were are creative things and i believe that we are we are creators and people so might say i'm not artistic but you said go to hobby lobby and start doing something or you know writing or you know whatever it is to to move energy you know through you and as i understand your books i think both of them have journaling prompts so for people that say i don't know how to journal because that could be very difficult sitting down looking at a blank page and saying what am i supposed to do there also just to offer this also there's some there's some tools like i don't apple as a journal app included with the phone now and you can you can get that to prompt you and it'll it'll say you went to lunch today and it knows a lot about you right or you went for a walk today journal about your walk so you can use tools like that that's another thing right exercise you know exercise is another outlet for your grief get it go join a gym and exercise that i started yoga two years ago and i do it every single day i do some form of yoga on youtube every day and that has helped me just that great feeling that you get afterwards and in my second book i did put a template in the back for a writing template you just fill in the blanks okay because i was a writing teacher so i know how hard it is to get people to write but yeah and some people physically can't write and i understand that but maybe they can do a voice get a tape recorder and start just saying how they feel and get it out it even if they don't have anybody to listen right then they could say it whenever and play it for somebody or mail it to somebody to listen to but there's a lot of different ways that you've got to find the way that's right for you for my sister it was exercised for me it was writing and carrying on this misery to ministry that i'm doing and this pain to purpose but you've got to find the meaning which is what you're passionate about you got to find out what that is cooking, baking, walking, dog sitting whatever it is maybe become a dog sitter and go sit with other people's dogs but you got to find what that meaning is and then later when you when you turn that meaning into purpose that's when you start serving others so let me rephrase that when you find the meaning in your life that's what you're passionate about it's what you have to do no matter what for me it's writing when you turn that into service for others that is purpose yeah yeah wow i like that yeah and it's it's you know it's just we've got to find the thing that works for us it's different for everybody i interviewed a woman on my podcast who had lost her mother and people were recommending different things and they were like yoga and she tried yoga she didn't like it she tried walking she tried you know journaling whatever and then she got into powerlifting and that happened to be the thing that worked for her she loved powerlifting she goes i like feeling it makes me feel empowered it makes me feel strong she liked just the like the meditative aspect of accounting the reps and it's like okay well powerlifting is not for everybody but that was her thing and she found it so we've got to try different things so for people to say i haven't found my thing yet you know just keep trying and find that thing that you said that it really just that you kind of get lost in that you just really enjoy doing absolutely so in your book um your new book which is coming out by the time this by the time this is out your book will be out we talked about you know this is the book that that talks about hope and finding hope and moving forward so for that person that's still in the early part right the still in the part when you wrote your first book about grief what do you have to say to them about hope that right now they're not feeling anything at all they're not feeling hope i didn't even want him to think about it i feel what you're feeling right now you need you've got to feel that you can't just jump you can't just jump and mask it and put it under the rug you've got to feel what you're feeling but just know that hope is there it's just waiting for you when you're ready and open your eyes open your eyes to the signs around you because they're not that far away i still have a relationship with my parents it's just a very different one i i talk to them every day their spirit still surrounding me their spirit still on the farm i hear them in my head they're still here it's just a different relationship their physical body may be gone from this earth but they're still here so every day that we miss them is just one day closer to when we'll see them again yeah now i like to think of it but just feel what you're feeling right now and just know that that hope is around the corner it's going to be there when you're ready when God's ready for you to see it and he's going to show it to you so keep your eyes open for it yeah i love that i think that's probably a really great great way to wrap up so i do want to ask you though is there anything that you would like to have talked about that i didn't ask you about i love when people ask me that because i have no idea i i i i'm building a house right now out on my family farm and it's going to be finished in about and February oh wow at 2026 i've been working on it for every year with the builder and i'm bringing a lot of the old things in the old farmhouse into my new house and that's very important people need to know that healing is not fitting healing is moving forward and integrating our grief i'm bringing the past with me i've got parts of the old farmhouse in my new farmhouse my mom and dad are still there with me like i said earlier it's just different but my new farmhouse is just beautiful i'm so excited to be back there and you know a lot of people are like i'm surprised you're able to move back there where your mom died or where your dad died but and at first i was questioning am i gonna do this but then i got a sign it's in that second book and i was like this is exactly where i'm supposed to be this is exactly how god intended for me to spend my last years i'm 53 you know hopefully the next 50 in this house on the farm where i grew up where my roots are writing my books and and so that's where i'm gonna be that's awesome i love that i love that i love that hope and i love what you talked about was we move forward with them we take them with them we continue the relationship so feel remind people of the names of both your books and where people can find you the first book is called my grief is not like yours my grief is not like yours and that's anywhere that books are sold it's an amazon Barnes and Noble you can go to my website and email me and we've got them here and i'll sign it and send it to you awesome and then my second book is also same places and it's called hope all the way hope all the way my grief is not like yours and hope all the way by theoboid and my website is thinktheo.com awesome well again thank you for being here thank you for sharing sharing with us and good luck with the farmhouse thank you so much for having me and letting me share to help some people out there all right enjoy the rest of your afternoon thank you