Welcome to the first episode of 2025! Join Tina Fornwald as she kicks off the year with a heartfelt message of gratitude and a vision for the future of the Widowhood Real Talk podcast and community. She reflects on the importance of community, connection, and creating a safe space for the bereaved to thrive. Plus, she shares insights from Brené Brown’s book “Rising Strong,” emphasizing the power of vulnerability, self-compassion, and staying true to your own grief journey. Tune in to be inspired and discover how you can become an active part of the Widowhood Real Talk community in 2025!
I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.
Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World
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Grateful For You: Widowhood Real Talk Turns 3 This 2025!
Welcome To The First Episode Of 2025!
Welcome to the first episode of 2025. I have a list because there are no interview questions. I’m having this conversation with you and I wanted to make sure to cover everything. First of all, I want to say thank you for allowing me to hold a safe space for you. We have entered our third year of this conversation and it has been quite the ride. If this is the first day of you grieving the loss of a loved one or maybe several years down the road, I know the conversations that we have in the community that we’ve created will serve you well.
My recommended book for 2025 that I am starting to read is called The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD. This is a book that I will be reading in 2025 and making many references to. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be able to have her as a guest on the show. I want you to know that in 2025, I am creating a vision for the show. I want you to know that we are a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. With a corporation and being the founder, I am creating a vision.
I like vision boards and pictures. Here, different things are going to be covered. There are a few things that I’ve covered already as far as a vision for widowhood but I want you to know that this is intentional. We have a purpose and I have come to embrace that my purpose is serving the bereaved. Yes, this organization was founded on the passing of my late husband, Mark, but the word widowhood is intentional because the loss not only impacts me as his wife but also my entire hood.
I’m from Chicago. For me, the word hood represents family. Mark’s passing has impacted his children, his siblings, our neighbors, our family, our friends, and coworkers. Anyone that Mark was in contact with was impacted when his life left this world, and so was this foundation. This show was developed intentionally to inspire people not just to exist after the passing of their loved one but to learn how to live and create a life that they thrive in.
What Is The Widowhood Real Talk Community?
Understanding that process may be different for each individual but know we are on this journey with you. I want to thank you for three years of the show being in existence, for knowing that this is a safe space, and for allowing me to encourage you, give you words of hope and inspiration, and have supportive discussions. In 2025, I want to invite you to embrace the full community. If you’ve only been limited to the show, which has been good, I want to let the community exist beyond the show. You say, “What does that look like?” Let me give you a few things.
We have our confidential grief Discord. There are people who are reading this content on different podcasts and applications, YouTube, and other different places. What I found is when I’m able to bring everyone together in the community, the ability for people to share, encourage each other, and grow is inspiring. There are people who see content on Instagram and different people who see content on TikTok. When everyone is able to come together and unite in the grief Discord, the conversation is rich.
What do we know about people who are grieving? Sometimes we are often awake when the world is asleep. To be able to come together on the grief Discord, ask questions, seek encouragement, and even be able to chat with people one-on-one is very empowering. Another way that you could join me in the community is I go live on TikTok every Monday at 7:00 PM Eastern time. That’s a great opportunity to catch up on what is the topic for the week, engage with other people in the bereaved community, and connect one-on-one.
Join Our Grief Support Groups!
Another way is we have a private Facebook group. That is another opportunity to connect with other people in widowhood and be able to engage and find support and encouragement. We also host two grief support groups peer-to-peer on the second Thursday of every month. It is a men’s only grief support group that is hosted by Mr. James Price. On the last Thursday of the month, I host a grief support group open to everyone.
You may say, “Why did the guys get their own grief support group?” It’s because our men need a safe space to be vulnerable and transparent, to know that their grief matters, and to not have to worry about outside eyes. We intentionally wanted to create a space for our men to be able to share their grief, be encouraged, and be uplifted. The other way in which you can join the community is by emailing me directly at WidowhoodRealTalk@Gmail.com.
Our men need a safe space to be vulnerable and transparent, to know that their grief matters, and to not have to worry about outside eyes. Share on XI want to hear from you. I want you to give me your recommended topics for 2025. I want to know if you’re interested in sharing your story and being a guest on my show. I would like to know if you have any guests that you would recommend me speaking with over the year. I would invite you to maybe host a show and you interview me in 2025. Those are different ways that you can become part of the community.
As we wrapped up 2024, we hosted our second in-person event here in Norfolk and it was amazing. I was able to connect in person with people who have followed the show on different social media platforms. We come together. We laughed, cried, smiled, joked, danced, and took plenty of pictures. I invite you to be able to participate in the events that we have because all of these events are intentionally created to inspire, encourage, and strengthen you on this very difficult journey.
In 2025, we have a lot of different things planned for you. As far as the way is the show, my promise to you is to do four monologue conversations where I’m talking with you one-on-one based on the questions that you submit. It may maybe a current topic or things that are relevant to my personal grief as I am going on this journey with you. After this conversation, we have a four-part discussion with a widow and a widower, them dating, their relationship, and how that has come together.
I know this conversation is inspiring. I enjoy speaking with both of them. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say after you hear this conversation. For Mother’s Day 2025, I have a very special conversation with a young lady who’s going to share about her mom and her journey through grief. Here are some of the events that you can look forward to hearing about and maybe participating in 2025.
Walk For Love 2025
From August 3rd through the 9th, 2025, I want you to be prepared to lace up your walking shoes and participate in Walk for Love. You say, “What is Walk for Love?” Walk for Love is our annual event where we ask everyone around the world. We have people reading our content in 108 different countries with over 3.7 million views. That’s a lot of people that can walk.
In Walk for Love, we’re asking between August 3rd through 9th, 2025 that you walk 1 mile a day. During that 1 mile, I asked you to take a picture, make a video, share something about your loved one, and post on your favorite social media platform with #WalkForLove and #WRTWT. That every day will encourage you to share about your loved one and also encourage other people to know that they are not alone.
When we are deep in grief, we often isolate ourselves. My desire is to change that isolation into a community. Participating in Walk for Love will give you an opportunity to connect with other people. Yes, there is merchandise. We are working on developing that. You can sport your Walk for Love sweatshirt, hat, or T-shirt during your walk and encourage other people.
Another event that we are planning for you in the summer of 2025 is a butterfly release ceremony. We have a local church that has donated land and we are also going to develop a memorial garden. That’s where the butterfly release ceremony will take place. We’re looking forward to you being here with us, participating, staying in a local hotel, or maybe you’re in the area and able to drive here. We’ll be providing journals, pens, and other different things for those who participate.
The next item that we’re looking to have in 2025 is our Secret Santa. Between June 1st and August 30th, 2025, you’ll be able to go online and apply for an application. What that Secret Santa will allow us to do is we are taking applications to allow children to receive Christmas gifts. We understand the burden that comes with losing a parent or a loved one and the financial impact that goes with that. We want to do our part to help you celebrate and have something to look forward to for the holidays.
The way the Secret Santa is working for 2024 is we have seven different children. Their parents completed the process and their Amazon wish list is posted on our website. We invite people to come, participate, and purchase gifts. They go directly to the children. We want to open that application process up earlier in 2025. From June 1st through August 30th, 2025, you’ll be able to go onto our website, submit your application, and then we’ll have time to work with the selected participants to be able to have their information on our website in a timely manner and allow people to support the children.
Dealing With Grief During The Holidays
The other event that we have coming up in November 2025 is dealing with grief during the holidays. Holidays bring a different part of grief. We want to help you prepare for that. Yes, we have mental health professionals who volunteer their time to support the widowhood to come together to provide a 90-minute seminar workshop format for you.
Holidays bring a different part of grief. Share on XThey’ll give you a space to talk about your apprehensions and concerns. Also, to hear proven hope on how to deal with grief during the holidays. There are a couple of other things that are still being worked out. I’ll let you know as they develop over 2025. Thank you for being with me over the years and going into our third year in 2025. I am looking forward to the conversations that are to come.
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Finding Strength In Brené Brown’s “Rising Strong”
I shared with you the book that I’m interested in reading in 2025 but I want to share a bit of the book that I read in 2024, which is Brené Brown’s Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. This book has been super encouraging for me. There’s a lot here but I want to read this one part, which spoke to me and shared some things that I found to be very beneficial. We’re on page 194. “Where we look back and think, I got stuck into proving I could rather than stepping back and asking if I should or if I even wanted to.”
This spoke to me because, in my personal grief journey, there are a lot of times when I have to think about what it is I’m doing and why I’m doing what I’m doing. Was I trying to prove that I wasn’t stuck in my grief? Was I trying to prove that I could still live in Mark’s absence? Was I trying to prove that I was not as sad as I was sometimes? If I was trying to prove that, why was it important? I came to the conclusion for myself. There was nothing worth proving to anybody but me.
That allowed me to start thinking, “If I was going to be sad, then sad I was going to be.” I heard one widow say, “I loved loud, then I will grieve loudly.” That resonated with me because, in this journey, I get to grieve as loud as I want to. Even though there is a difference, people who have been divorced seem to be given the right of passage to continue living their life, be upset with the person they were dating or were married to, and be happy about living their life and being in this new version of themselves.
One of the things that I’ve come to the conclusion with people in this widowhood is that we have to validate ourselves and give ourselves permission to be happy, live, laugh, and enjoy. We get to celebrate that we have done something often the entire world wished that they could do. We have had the privilege of loving someone, being their spouse, and loving them until they took their last breath upon this earth. That is a choice that we made. That was a vow that we were able to fulfill.
Stay In Your Own Lawn, Do Not Compare
Reading this portion of the book reaffirmed to me that my choice to show up every day in my marriage was something that I wanted to do. I am grateful to have had the honor to spend 32 years with Mark Fornwald. I encourage you to celebrate the person that you are grieving and the love that still exists. Their physical body may no longer be in this world but we still love them. You still love them so I encourage you to invoke their name, say their name out loud, and share stories of them with people.
Let your friends and loved ones know you want to invoke their name and you want to talk about them. Even though they may be gone physically from this world, they are not gone from your heart. The ability to share their name and share them with other people will let people know that they can also share the stories of your loved ones. At my one-year celebration of Mark’s passing, I reached out to family and friends. I asked them, “What do you remember about Mark? What do you remember about the day he left this world?”
It opened the door for them to share their Mark stories with me. Many people were holding back their Mark stories because they didn’t want their grief to appear to be bigger than mine but once I embraced them and added them to the grief journey, I found out things I never knew before. I encourage you to do the same. Share with me what you learn when your friends and family give you stories of your loved one and share that with you.
One of the things that she talks about in this portion of the book is, “To stay in your own lawn and not compare.” That spoke to me as far as on this grief journey that oftentimes I find that people try to compare. “We’ve both been grieving for a year but she seems further along than I am. We’ve both been grieving for two years and he seems better than I am. We’ve both lost our child but she seems to be okay and he doesn’t.”
Even in the same household, people will compare their grief experiences to one another. It’s not fair, beneficial, and helpful. We all breathe differently. You can both be the parent of a child who is lost and grieve the loss of that child differently. It is not helpful when we try to impose our way of grieving on someone else. I encourage you to give the people in your life space and grieve the way that they do. Don’t judge and compare. Don’t assess how your grief looks different than theirs and think that they’re grieving incorrectly. Know that they’re going through their grief at their own pace, at their own time, and in the way that works best for them.
If you see someone harming themself, then it would be beneficial to particularly step in, encourage them, or find somebody to help them walk through this journey. On average, people are different. Somebody may cry a lot. Somebody else may be very quiet, stoic, and reserved. Some may throw themselves into working late. Someone else may throw themselves into the gym. Know that if the person they love is no longer here, it impacts them.
The other thing about comparison is people say, “It’s eight years and I’m still grieving.” Newsflash. They’re still dead. If they’re still dead, you’re going to grieve them. The way you hold and manage that grief will change most likely over time but don’t be surprised if you’re still missing them. You love them and you were accustomed to them being here. It is only reasonable that their absence from this world will be difficult. It’s something that you will learn to walk through, which is why we’re going to read The Grieving Brain.
The other thing that she talks about in this portion of the book is to talk to ourselves in the way that we talk to our loved ones. Be kind to yourself. Be gentle, understanding, and forgiving. Many times on this grief journey, we will “what if.” “If I would have done this, this would be different.” The reality is we don’t control the universe. We don’t determine when someone leaves this world but we will wrap ourselves around and wind ourselves up about, “I should have done this or that.”
The Power Of Reaching Out To Your Community
The reality is oftentimes, we do the best that we can do with the knowledge that we have. If that’s the situation, I invite you to find peace with the idea that your loved one has fulfilled their journey in life and you are continuing to walk out yours. The other thing she talks about is to reach out to someone we trust. That is the community that I spoke about. Have the ability to reach out to other people who have traveled the same road that you’re on. Reach out to your mental health professional. Reach out and email me or contact me.
Reaching out gives us a space to be able to talk through things that we are dealing with and understand that there are other people in the community with us who have a sense of understanding of how we feel. Those are my top takeaways from this book Rising Strong with Brené Brown. There are tons of nuggets in here but when I was reading this and how it related to the widow’s journey, I wanted to share that with you.
Find peace with the idea that your loved one has fulfilled their journey in life, and you are continuing to walk out yours. Share on XThank you for allowing me to be with you. I am looking forward to what 2025 has to hold. I know it may be a little scary. Sometimes, you can probably be mad but I encourage you to take it day by day and moment by moment. You’ll be surprised at where this journey may take you. I hope that you’re able to participate in one of the events that we have and I get to speak with you on a personal level. Thank you for being here. Be willing to check out the next conversation with my widow friend on her journey. Have a good day.
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I want to say thank you again for being on this path with me and allowing me to share with you. If you’re checking out the show for the very first time, I invite you to go way back to the first episodes, the conversations with my family and friends, talking about my personal grief journey so you can see how we got to where we are. Thanks for being here. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye bye.
