Becky Galli was born into a family that valued the power of having a plan. With a pastor father and a stay-at-home mother, her 1960s southern upbringing was bucolic―even enviable. But when her brother died in a waterskiing accident, aged seventeen, the slow unraveling of her perfect family began. Though grief overwhelmed the family, twenty-year-old Galli forged forward with her plans for the future―marriage, career, and raising a family of her own―one she hoped would be as idyllic as the family she remembered from her childhood. But life instead presented her with situation after situation that derailed her. At once heartbreaking and inspiring, Rethinking Possible is a story of the power of love over loss and the choice we all have to shape our life circumstances―even when we’re forced to confront the unimaginable.  

Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (Becky) is a reluctant―but obsessed―columnist who writes about love, loss, and healing. Surviving significant losses―her seventeen-year-old brother’s death; her son’s degenerative disease and subsequent death; her daughter’s autism; her divorce; and nine days later, her paralysis from transverse myelitis, a rare spinal cord inflammation that began as the flu―has fostered an unexpected but prolific writing career. In 2000, The Baltimore Sun published her first column about playing soccer with her son―from the wheelchair. Fifteen years later, with 400 published columns and a completed memoir, she launched Thoughtful Thursdays―Lessons from a Resilient Heart, a weekly column for her subscriber family that shares what’s inspired her to stay positive. She also periodically contributes to The Baltimore Sun’s Op-Ed page, Midlife Boulevard, Nanahood, and The Mighty.

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