This episode closes out a month of conversations dedicated to love, loss, and remembrance.
Recorded nine years after the death of my husband, Mark, this final March reflection is not about closure or moving on. It is about what endured. What relocated. What stayed. In this conversation, I speak to both Mark and you, the listener, exploring the idea of continuing bonds and the quiet ways love endures long after loss. I share how grief has changed shape over time, how connection can persist without denial, and how meaning can be made not by letting go, but by carrying love forward.
This episode offers gentle permission to remember, to speak love aloud, and to honor the relationships that continue to shape us even in their absence.
March is ending. Love is not.
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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Love That Stayed
Before we begin this episode, I want to name where we are in this month. This is the final episode in a series I’ve dedicated to my late husband, Mark Fornwald. During the month of March 11th, 2017, he left this world. Throughout March 2026, I’ve chosen to honor him in my grief and my love out loud one conversation at a time. If you’re joining me now, you have missed anything you need. The conversations weren’t meant to be consumed in order or completed like a program. They were meant to be entered gently wherever you found them.
This episode isn’t about wrapping up anything or offering conclusions. It’s about gathering what remains and what stayed would endure and what continues to live on after my loss. As with other conversations, some of what I’ll say is spoken directly to Mark, some is spoken to you and some simply exists in the space between love and memory.
Mark, as we close out March 2026, I want to talk with you again. Not to say goodbye but to acknowledge what has never left. Mark, years later, you’re still here. You are still what matters. Do you know how love changes shape? I would have never thought of that years ago when my girlfriend Kim gave Mark and I that statuette. It just seemed like love would last forever. I never thought about our love changing. The flag is my flag from leaving the United States military and the little statuette of praying.
Enduring Love & Continuing Bonds With Mark
My love for Mark has changed because I don’t get to touch him. I don’t get to embrace him when I say I love him and what that looks like, but it still exists. I still love him now. That will never change. I haven’t been able to build on top of that love. We’ve not had new experiences that make me feel like I love him in a different way or more than I did before because that interaction that personal connection that I have with you is stopped the moment you start breathing but I love you.
I think about how I love you when I see our children. I think about how I love you now when different things happen that we may have spoken about doing and I’ve been able to do them. It has reshaped because the direct intimacy doesn’t exist with you anymore, Mark, but it still exists. Do you know where you show up now in my life? My last name is still Fornwald. I cannot consider my last name being anything else but your last name.
That connection is important for our family and our children to know that they have a parent in this world with the same last name. I did get remarried like you suggested and gave me permission to, but I’m glad that the reality of loving you is still something that shows up every day in my life. When I moved to Virginia, I was talking to you on the drive here saying, “I’m moving,” as we said that we would, when I made it to the place where I was living and I took a bath. I had a glass of wine and I said to you out loud, “I did it babe. I made it here. I made this trip and I relocated.”
The reality of loving you is still something that shows up every day in my life. Share on XWhen there are things in my life that are happening when I go on a trip and used to text you when I come home that I’ve made it there safely. The thought is there. I may not be texting you because you’re no longer in this world but mentally, I am checking in with you and telling you that I made it safely. Do you know you were never erased? Some people thought that once you stop breathing that some way or another, I would forget about you. It’s not possible. I spent 32 years of my life with you and that was from like the age of eighteen straight up into just about hitting 50.
I cannot talk about anything about who I am as a person without mentioning you to some extent. There is no way possible that you could be erased from my life. You are ever present and ever real. The part that was the most difficult for me is trying to come to terms with that. Other people may get uncomfortable, because I’m talking about you. You’re no longer here, but my life and who I am has been shaped every way possible because of who I am with you.
People got a buckle up because I’m going to talk about you. I’m going to mention you in my life. Not just the work that I’m doing with the show. It’s because you were my husband. Technically, in my head, I must admit you still are. You may be my late husband that is no longer in this world but I will always be your wife. Even if I have remarried, you are my late husband. You were no one else’s husband, but mine.
Grief, Memory, & Personal Reflection
That is why some people say, “You’re no longer a widow.” I’m like, “Did Mark come back to life? He didn’t. I’m still his widow,” because I still love you and you are no longer in this world. This part of the conversation is to you, the reader. Weeks have passed since the death-versary of my husband Mark. Introducing the idea continually bonds me to him. Normalizing my ongoing connection with Mark is important and how my relationship with Mark has transformed.
I know in the first year of his passing, I talked about him in the present tense. Years later, I have gotten used to saying my late husband. It does make me feel like I’m some stoic great, great grandma person. I don’t look at my face and say, “That’s the face of a woman whose husband has died,” but I know that it is. It seems like that’s somebody else’s life when I say those words but I know that it is mine. Where do you feel him now? My value, my work, and my choices. I feel Mark every time I record an episode. I feel Mark every time I am showing up for someone else who is grieving. I feel Mark as we prepare for this Gala on May 16th, 2026 which is Hope Grows Here, thinking that we are going to have an educational fund that will be in his name.
To think we are going to start a memorial garden that will be in his name. Those are heavy things that I think of the weight of losing him, of him no longer being in the world and the price, the hurt and the pain that my children and I, family members and friends that are close have bared the weight of his absence. It is more than the momentary things. It is the everyday part of life of me existing in a world that I thought would have had Mark in it and my journey continuing without his.
What stayed when everything else changed? My memories. My thoughts. The reality that we did have this life together and the pictures. I’m glad for every picture I took. Even though sometimes he was gawking about it and was like, “I don’t want to take a picture.” I have them all. The things that my children saved on their phone that I was not aware of until later that we share with each other. What are the moments of quiet companionship?
Waking up on March 11th, crying thinking about how he left this world. The moments of stillness where I have to sit back and think about what I have endured in this life. I’m thinking about us being in Korea as meeting in the military together. The things that we’ve done, the places that we’ve traveled, the fights we’ve had, and then reconciled. This love was real. It seems like it’s faded or life has changed, but knowing I did experience all of this with him.
When I sit and I think about our children and who they are and how much who they are is because of who their dad is. Those are things that I think about. My love for Mark doesn’t end. It’s relocated. It may not be ever present upfront because I don’t get to see him every day. It still exists. I can continue to have a bond with Mark. There are still times that I speak to him, especially about our children and go, “Can you see what they’re doing from where you’re at because I can’t? I’m so curious what you would have said or done if you were here.”
Mark and I parent differently. We showed up in the world differently, and I wonder what our children would be if they’re dead and present in their life now and I was navigating their adulthood with them. I can’t help but wonder what choices he would have made in comparison to the choice I had to make independently of him. That was the biggest struggle. Our children were adults when Mark left this world but they still need their parents. They’re still making choices. They require my input and I wonder what that would have looked like if he would have been part of those discussions.
I’ll never know. I just know what I had to do. Why does this understanding bring relief? For me, it’s because I always get to talk about Mark. He’s not somebody just in my past. He is in my present. In the second year of grief, I feel like it was something that I had to stop talking about him, that I had to live a life that did not mention his name. That calls me more hurt and pain than just saying his name out loud. The ability to know. For me, this is what my grief looks like.
It will always involve some form or fashion, Mark Fornwald existence and that is okay for me. I know he died. I’m not delusional about that, but what I know is, his presence in my everyday life is part of what I carry in my love for him and who I am now. You, as the reader, how you mayor the bond with your loved one if they’re no longer here, may look different. This is not a cookie cutter situation. This episode is me sharing with you how I keep my late husband Mark present. That is what works for me. Maybe for some people they don’t want to say their name, and that’s fine. Maybe for some people they want to leave that person in the past.
They have neatly buttoned it up and packed it away. All they are concerned about is life in its current state. That’s your choice. Other people may have every picture of everything that happened just like that person was there. I’ve met people that 5, 10, and 12 years later, their loved ones’ items are remaining right where they left them. How you process that is up to each individual. Knowing in reality that we know that they are no longer here and we are operating in this life without them is the truth. That truth is hard.
That truth is difficult to wake up to every day. If you find comfort and manage it differently for you, that’s okay. Everybody does this differently because who we are and what our grief looks like is based on us being unique individuals. As I wrap up, returning to Mark. I want to say thank you for staying with me and never leaving, Mark. Thank you for the love that didn’t leave. Thank you for a life that continues your life through me. Mark Fornwald’s name will be said out loud. In the work that I do, I will keep his memory alive.
It was not something that when he died, I was like, “I’m going to make pain into purpose and I’m going to keep his memory alive.” This evolved over time. I would have never thought it was possible to live and not be in pain of his death. It still sucker punches me sometimes when I think about it. No, this is one of the hardest experiences in my entire life. At the same time, I would not take away being there when he took his last breath and being there when he left this world. He was amazing and he deserved to have his wife nearby.
Honoring What Remains & Moving Forward
As I close up this final conversation of March 2026, I want to return once more to you, Mark. Not to a place of you in the path. Not a closed chapter, but to acknowledge the ways you remain through love, memory and life I continue to live. March 2026 was never about moving on. It was about honoring what stayed, and Mark, you stayed with me and within me through the love that continues to shape my life now.
March 2026 was never about moving on. It was about honoring what stayed, and, Mark, you stayed with me—within me—through the love that continues to shape my life now. Share on XTo those who’ve read either one episode or all four, thank you. Thank you for holding space with me. I hope you felt permission, to remember, to speak, to love out loud and to carry your own person forward in whatever way feels true to you. March 2026 is ending, but my love for Mark is not. With that, I’ll let March 2026 rest, held, honored, and complete.
