KimBoo York
KimBoo York lives in a small Southern town and is an author and full time graduate student. At 40 years old, she "rebooted" her life after facing up to many serious issues brought on by the deaths of both her parents when she was in her mid-20s. A very naïve and sheltered young woman at the time, those deaths combined with the loss of her family's house and the deaths of her dogs (as she says, "like a bad Country Western song…") derailed KimBoo's life for nearly fifteen years. KimBoo is nearly 42 at this point, in 2011, and still trying to figure out all the details of being divorced, single, in graduate school, and broke. She makes no pretense to be one of those awesome, perfect people who makes lemonade out of tragedy. She's not beautiful or rich and certainly is not very lucky, but she is working hard at living her life authentically, both for herself and in memory of those she has lost. Like most people at Open to Hope, KimBoo is simply a grief survivor trying to keep going. Her book about her experiences as a young adult orphan was self-published last year: Grieving Futures: Surviving the Deaths of My Parents, My Home, and My Future.