Michelle Hord is resilience personified.
The former Good Morning America producer endured the unimaginable when in 2017 her then-husband Neil White murdered their 7-year-old daughter, Gabrielle. Now, Michelle's sharing her story in a new memoir titled The Other Side of Yet: Finding Light in the Midst of Darkness.
She stopped by E! News' Daily Pop on April 13 to discuss the book and reflect on the tragedy, which she says occurred during her "tumultuous divorce."
It was June 2017 when her ex finally agreed to sign the divorce papers, but by that point, she said "there was so much friction" between the two that she was living in a rental house. Then, on June 6, "I got this call from my nanny with this bloodcurdling scream, and it was clear she was at a crime scene."
Michelle continued, "I went in a little room and shut the door...got on my knees and said 'God, I do not know what I'm walking into, but whatever it is, please just give me the strength to deal with it.'"
She soon learned that her daughter had been suffocated. Two years later, Neil was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
You won't find any mentions of Neil in The Other Side of Yet, though. "I chose not to use his real name in the book," Michelle explained, "because I believe that person no longer exists."
That's not to say she forgives him. "For me, forgiveness is about someone who is seeking forgiveness, which is not the case," Michelle said. "But more importantly, it's about reconciliation, and so my version of making peace has been to reconnect with his mother, Gabrielle's grandmother, who not only lost a grandchild but had her only child do this to her only grandchild."
This reconciliation, Michelle added, "has been the olive branch that has meant the most."
The two have even begun going to church together, something that's been an essential part of her healing process. "I think being tethered—whether it is to a god, the universe, mother nature [or] something bigger than yourself—helps you when you want to float away."
"When this happened, it was clear this was worse than my worst nightmare—who did it, how it happened—and so I felt like there was something in this universe that was trying to take me out," Michelle said. "But the defiant, 'Damnit, I'm not going to let that happen' in me said, 'I shall not be moved. Whatever this is, I am not going to let it beat me. I'm not going to let it win.'"
And she hasn't. Instead, Michelle not only wrote The Other Side of Yet but also started a nonprofit organization, Gabrielle's Wings, in her daughter's honor. "For me as a mother," she explained, "it was important that the work and legacy in her name would be 10 times bigger than what happened to her."
Learn more about Gabrielle's Wings here. Michelle Hord's book, The Other Side of Yet: Finding Light in the Midst of Darkness, is available wherever books are sold.