Teri Busse
Teri Busse is an author, mother, widow, and former paramedic whose life and work are shaped by both resilience and contradiction. She writes from lived experience—not just professional exposure to crisis, but personal survival through grief, trauma, addiction, and the long, complicated process of rebuilding.
Raised in a family that valued independence and grit, Teri carried those traits into adulthood, spending more than two decades in emergency services, where she witnessed people on the worst days of their lives. But her most defining experiences did not come from the back of an ambulance—they came from her own.
After the sudden loss of her husband and, later, the murder of her son, Rylee James, Teri found herself navigating unimaginable grief alongside a justice system that often felt impersonal and incomplete. That experience became the foundation for her book, 13 Days of Silence, a deeply personal account that challenges common ideas about closure, justice, and what it means to move forward when answers never fully come.
Her story does not follow a clean narrative. Alongside grief, she has faced struggles with control, relationships, and addiction—experiences she speaks about openly as part of a broader commitment to honesty over perfection. Her recovery is ongoing, grounded in accountability, growth, and a refusal to let her past define the limits of her future.
In addition to her writing, Teri has contributed time and advocacy efforts with organizations such as Everytown for Gun Safety and the American Red Cross, supporting initiatives tied to community safety, crisis response, and recovery. Her work and voice have gained increasing recognition, including a nomination for a TED Talk and being named a nominee for Author of the Year through the International Impact Book Awards.
Today, she is the founder of The Lemon Grove, an independent publishing platform, and the voice behind Rooted in Resilience, where she shares real, unfiltered reflections on trauma, healing, and personal transformation. Her work spans memoir, medical nonfiction, and children’s books, all tied together by a consistent theme: surviving what should have broken you, and choosing to keep going anyway.
She is currently pursuing a doctorate in psychology, with a focus on trauma and coping, driven by a desire to better understand not just how people survive—but how they rebuild.
At the center of everything she does is a simple but hard-earned truth: resilience is not about having it all together. It is about continuing forward, even when nothing feels certain.
• Master's Degree (in progress)
• Doctorate (in progress)
• National Honor Roll Society
• International Bestseller for 13 Days of Silence
• Nominated for Author of the Year
• Impact Book Awards 2026
• Nominated for TED Talk
• National Honor Roll Society
• Mrs. Classic Colorado 2026 Contestant
• Colorado Authors League
• National Honor Roll Society
• Red Cross Disaster Relief Volunteer
• Board of Directors
• Rylee James Memorial Welding schlorship
• Every Town USA (responsible gun control advocacy)
What do you attribute your success to?
I think my success comes from being willing to adapt and overcome, which is the mentality I took from being a paramedic. When something doesn't go the right way, you have to figure it out, and in that world I had to do it in an acute, fast setting. I had to put myself first and realize my career wasn't first. When you're working for someone else, you have this sense of loyalty to them, but giving my own self that grace and being loyal to myself was a lot harder than I thought. I felt selfish at first, but now I'm healthier than I was 10 years ago in every aspect. It's about being willing to grow and be vulnerable, and understanding that if you fail, it's not failing - it's just another step to learn something and do it better the next time. You have to be willing to take rejection as constructive criticism to work on something. My first book, if I look back, I cringe and wonder how I sold copies of it, but I put myself out there and did it. Now I can publish my own book, format it, and publish it in a couple days, but it took me 6 months at first. It's just growth and being willing to not be successful initially, being willing to work for it.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I’ve ever received is that mistakes are part of the process—you’re going to make them. What matters is that you learn from them and don’t make the same one twice. That mindset takes the pressure off perfection and puts it on growth, which is where real progress happens.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
First of all, it's going to be probably one of the scariest things you ever did, because you get comfortable in your zone, and when you're comfortable, you just expect what comes and you're anticipating it. Growth is hard, and change is hard. To go to the next level of anything, you have to be willing to change and be vulnerable. If you fail, it's not failing - it's just another step to learn something and do it better the next time. It's really just a way to get a little more education. I think it's more common to not put yourself out there initially. Be willing to take rejection, but take rejection as constructive criticism to work on something. My first book, if I look back, I cringe and think how did I sell copies of that, but I put myself out there and did it, and it was hard. Where I've come from to where I'm at now - I can publish my own book, format it, publish it in a couple days, but it took me 6 months initially. It's just growth and being willing to grow and be willing to not be successful at first. You have to be willing to work for it. You just pivot, you adapt and overcome.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges in my field right now is that the system is overwhelmed and still largely reactive. Whether you’re looking at emergency services or mental health, we tend to respond once someone is already in crisis instead of preventing it earlier. At the same time, the people working in these roles are often burned out, understaffed, and carrying their own trauma.
The opportunity is that we’re starting to have more honest conversations about those issues. There’s more openness around mental health, more recognition of provider burnout, and more willingness to include lived experience alongside clinical knowledge. That creates space to rethink how we approach care—focusing more on prevention, support, and long-term outcomes instead of just crisis management.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The most important thing to me is showing my young daughters that life can take a pivot, but you can still rebuild from it. My husband was also killed when they were 7 months old and two and a half, so I've been trying to show them resilience. Getting my son's story out there and having his legacy not end with some headlines has been the most important thing to me. Everything I do, all the money I make, goes to the scholarship, so I always feel better about it that way. I'm not trying to get rich off other people - that's not what it is. For me, it's an opportunity to pay it forward to kids that can't afford welding school. It's about helping people - if I could help one person at a local level, then that's really all it's about. I want to be there for people similar to my story, to say this is what I did, or this is what you could do, or I went down this road. It was never about getting wealthy - it was about sharing knowledge. I deal with imposter syndrome a lot, but I want my message to resonate with people on a personal level.
Locations
The Lemon Grove LLC
7680 Bonterra, Colorado Springs, CO 80925, Colorado Springs, CO 80925