I sit down with my guest host and upcoming podcaster Marcia Boarders as I open up about my experiences with widowhood and my very own process of moving forward. I discuss why dealing with grief does not necessarily require you to jump back immediately into the dating scene and remarry – it is all about choosing and loving yourself. I talk about my own dating experience after my husband’s passing, which is centered on intentionality and purpose. I also emphasize the importance of having a supportive community and the benefits of undergoing therapy when navigating through your grieving journey.

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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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

The Art Of Moving Forward With Marcia Boarders And Tina Fornwald

Introducing Guest Host Marcia

I want to introduce to you to my host. Ms. Marcia Borders is an upcoming podcaster and she is going to interview me about moving forward. Before we start that, I would like for Marcia to share a little bit about herself and her podcast because I want you to check her out too.

Thank you so much. Thank you for allowing me the time to have a conversation with you regarding your show, my podcast and moving forward. My name is Marcia Borders. I am the host for What’s Grief Amongst Friends. It’s a podcast based around people dealing with grief and hopefully, my podcast will touch others and let them know that they are not alone in this process. They’re not alone on this journey because you get bogged down and you get to feeling like there’s no one there for you or you don’t know how to interpret your feelings, the things that you’re going through.

After my husband passed in January 2024, his name was Noah, I had a not-so-great reaction where I felt left out. I felt deserted and I felt like, “Where’d everybody go?” Everybody went on with their life. I was inspired. I can’t really tell you how, but I was inspired to do something for other people who have had a significant loss. Part of that was starting a podcast and that’s what this is all about. Tina has been so gracious in allowing me the time and space to speak with her about her process, how she dealt with things, and the next step moving on. Thank you so much, Tina, for having me. I appreciate you.

You are welcome. Thank you for introducing yourself to our community. I’m in your hands.

Deciding To Move Forward From Grief

I have seen a couple of your videos and I understand about you and Mark’s relationship and what you went through. I’ve been watching your TikToks and you’ve been giving us the journal readings and that’s been awesome. I wanted to journal, but it hasn’t gotten to me yet to sit and do that. I do have a journal, I just haven’t sat down with it and taken it to the next step. At some point, could you share with us when you decided or how it came about that you decided to move forward and to begin a new relationship? Can you share with us when the decision was made for you to move forward with your life?

Actually, that answer does start with Mark. The way that it starts with him, there was a lot of chronic heart conditions in his family and he was certain that he was not going to make it to the age of 60. I didn’t want to hear anything about it, but he had a cousin that passed in his early 30 around Thanksgiving. Both of his parents had passed because of heart-related issues and Mark was certain he was not going to make it to 60.

Our plan was actually to stop working in Pennsylvania and move to Virginia to a smaller property that we owned and to be able to just be in a place that he didn’t have to work and live off of my income because the kids were getting older. Since Mark was so certain he was going to leave this world early, we talked about what my life would look like in his absence.

In those conversations, he clearly expressed, “I would want you to get remarried. I would want you to be happy. I would want you to have love in your life. I would want you to be free to do whatever you want to do.” Those were some tearful conversations because I did not want to hear that. When he did pass, I was turning 51. When he passed, it was like, I’m so glad that we had those conversations because it can be a struggle with the concept.

Mark and I were together for 32 years and thinking of being in a relationship outside of one with him can elicit a lot of guilt, second thoughts, what should I do? I don’t want to do something that would make him upset. All those things were clear. That conversation I had with my husband was the setup for me to know that when that time was right, I can move forward.

I want to be clear with that because I know everyone that reads this show is not a widow or widower. They are people supporting widows. There are children of people who have lost loved ones because Mark was my husband, but that means my children lost a parent and somebody else lost a sibling. Widowhood is that community. I know that there are people from all places of this hood.

I encourage you to have that conversation with your loved one about the inevitable. It’s not if something happens. One thing we’re guaranteed of one day we will close our eyes and never wake up. If you have that conversation with them now, it eliminates that. Now Mark has passed and I’m living in this alternate universe and I went to spend some time with a friend that had been single her entire life.

I put a glass down and she was cleaning it. I put something and she was moving it around because she had been accustomed to having her own space. I remember thinking, “Tina, how long before you don’t know how to hold space with somebody else? How long before everything is just the way you want it to be and you don’t know how to do that?”

Spending that time with that friend just made me start thinking of that in a way I hadn’t before. I was like, “Okay, today we’re going to make ourself a bio on a dating app.” I was sitting there on BlackPeopleMeet.com because Mark was Caucasian. What I wasn’t going to do, I needed in my head to make sure that I was not doing something that made me think of him.

Some people say they want to date somebody similar to their deceased spouse. That was not going to go for me. Mark was Caucasian. He was the same height. It was going to be a brother. They needed to be tall. I had polar opposite of some of those things because I didn’t want to be unfair to somebody else because they were gleaming towards what Mark looked like. That was my intention. That was the catalyst for me to start moving forward and thinking about dating and bringing someone else into my life.

Undergoing Therapy And Choosing Yourself

In the grieving process, how long did it take you to be okay with yourself moving forward?

That experience happened just about a little bit over a year out. Thank you for that question. I want to say this because a lot of times, people correlate time with something. The time is only relevant what you do with it. If a year went by and I went to work, I came home and I isolated. That is a very different experience than my year where I was meeting with a mental health professional once a week and group therapy with other widows.

I was reaching out to every widow that I knew, going to grief support conferences, devouring books on grief and journaling and being proactive and leaning into my hurt and pain. This was the most horrific experience in my whole life. If there was anything I wanted to run from, it would’ve been this. I had just finished dealing with breast cancer and then having an emergency hysterectomy because it was turning into ovarian cancer.

That procedure happened in October 2016. Mark took a job in Virginia where we were trying to relocate to. In November, he moved to Portsmouth, Virginia and he passed March 2017. I was devastated. It’s hard to comprehend that now, but I was in the corner of a hotel screaming into the phone to my sisters in devastation and walking around in a grief fog and trying to figure out how do I even live? How am I breathing? Getting up the next day and Mark does not exist in this universe.

I leaned in hard because I was afraid of losing myself. If I didn’t do some work, I didn’t know how this would be any different. A friend whose husband unfortunately had passed a few months before Mark, called me and said, “I cannot go to that service.” I was like, “Girl, I don’t want to go.” She said, “What I have done is I reached out to my therapist and she said that she would speak with you.”

That was a gift. I had never had a therapist or a psychologist or done any of that. What I did know, I was in uncharted territory and the first thing I needed to work on was me. I needed to work on my healing. I needed to work on how to drive someplace and not drive off on the wrong highway. I needed to remember how everything didn’t make me anxious and being afraid to wake up every day.

The moving forward was me choosing myself every day. The moving forward was me choosing to love myself every day. The moving forward was doing the work for me with a mental health professional and crying out to God and leaning on my faith. Those were the steps of moving forward. Eventually, it said I had space for someone else to love me, but that was irrelevant. The first part of moving forward for me was choosing not to crumble and become devastated and fall apart because I had to come to the conclusion that people die all the time. This was my person and I needed to process that.

My daughter came to me in the shower that night and we had been at the hospital and we’re leaving her dad’s body there and we’re coming back to a hotel on Dover Air Force Base because that’s where we were. Friends were meeting us there. I’m in the shower and she comes in and just rips the shower and back and she goes, “Was dad the love of your life?” I was like, “This baby needs this Disney answer,” but words matter. When she asked me that, I was thinking in my mind and I gave her my honest answer.

I said, “I love your dad and I will love him forever, but I am the love of my own life, because if he is the love of my life and he is dead, what do I have left to live with? What will I exist off of?” I know we say these things like they were the love of my life, but articulating those words meant something to me. At that moment, I needed to start figuring out how I was going to live. I had to capture and reclaim. I am the love of my own life. Those were the beginning steps of me moving forward because I had to start creating a life without Mark and living without him. That’s what it looked like for me.

I’m so happy we’re doing this because you are speaking to my heart, to my soul. I’m sure that this is going to resonate with so many people. I’m in a support group and one of the women in there, her biggest thing is, “If they’re getting married after six months or after a year, they couldn’t really.” I’m like, “Don’t hold other people to your premise of how they’re supposed to move on with their life.”

I’m so glad that you said you are the love of your life because everybody tries to pinhole you into being this person. That person is the only one that gets hurt in the whole process because you’re trying to live up to their expectations or what you think your loved one would’ve wanted or the strangers. I’m so happy you answered the way you answered. It was so eloquent and informative. Thank you so much for that answer.

Why Other People Scrutinize Grieving People

Thank you. You said something that I think is interesting, if I can speak on a little bit. Oftentimes, people want to assess how someone else is grieving, even other widows. I think it’s very interesting for the anonymous person to make a very broad statement that if they’re getting married in six months or a year, they didn’t love their loved one. You have no clue. You have zero clue. You don’t know if they had a good marriage or they had a bad marriage. You don’t know if they were polyamorous or they had multiple relationships going on and that’s what they agreed upon. You have no clue of someone else’s living arrangement.

Touching on that, you specifically said you and Mark had plenty of conversations prior to the incident so that you knew where he stood on it. No matter whether I knew or anyone else knew, you knew where he stood on that. No one else knows what you two discussed.

Exactly. My daughter actually has heard some of the conversations and on one of the TikTok, somebody was dragging me and she was like, “Mom, I’m coming in.” We don’t know. We have these big opinions with little information. Also, the Bible gives us verses and that is my benchmark. It talks about when your husband has passed, you have completed your vow. What are you talking to me about? If I got married two weeks later, you could say whatever you want, but the question is, am I wrong? No.

It’s interesting also that level of scrutiny is generally only given to females. That level of scrutiny is not very commonly given to our widower brothers. Their loss and their pain is equally as difficult but society has a skewed opinion that you can look up statistics and find out how often when someone’s wife is ill, they may progress to another relationship before they have even deceased. Not that it is all of our widower brothers, but there are statistics that we’ll show you and life gives them a pass. My husband had been out this world three years and I get married and you want to give me junk? It’s just a double standard that I will not silently let go by without addressing that.

I appreciate that because, like I said, there are people who have these opinions and if you’re not a strong individual and if you’re not strong within yourself, you’ll tend to let someone else lead you and you’ll sit back and say, “Is something wrong with me?” You’ll isolate yourself because you’re so unsure of how to move forward. I’m so happy you spoke on that because whoever reads this, I’m sure it’s going to resonate with someone that wasn’t sure that heard. Six months, a year, five years, or whatever is not long enough. Your amount of love is comparable to what I say, not how you feel.

Thank you for actually going back to that. In comparison, I think that they’re thinking about comparing the two or they think that you’re replacing someone. My choice to open my heart is just like I have two children. When Catherine was born, I didn’t get rid of Alexander. My heart grew to love both of them. My current husband knows I will always love Mark Fornwald. There is nothing anyone can do that will change that, nor is he trying to. He is a mature gentleman that knows the space that he’s in is the space that I want him to be in.

He’s not competing with Mark. He is sad that this is the way that we had to get together but he’s very grateful that I’m in his life. He supports me in the work that I do, supporting other people who are grieving and encourages me to do that. There’s no competition. I think people have to understand the duality can exist. I can love my late husband because he was a good man, he was a good father, he was a good husband but his journey on this world is over. Mine still continues and it continued with me serving the widowhood, people who are grieving. It has continued with me finding someone else to love me in the life that I have remaining.

Getting Into The Dating Scene

You mentioned that you went on Black People Meet. Was he the first or was he a swipe? Did you have to swipe some to get to him?

Girl, he wasn’t even on BlackPeopleMeet.com. He was on six dating apps later. Dating is a lot of work. What I would say for the people that are considering dating, sit with yourself and find out why you’re dating and be honest with it. If you are dating because you’re lonely, you want a travel partner, if you’re dating because you want a booty call, you just want to hook up because you got some whittle fire going on. If you’re dating with intentionality because you want to get married, if you are dating and thinking, “I am drawing my spouse’s retirement and I can’t get married until I get to a certain age,” understand yourself why you’re dating, what you’re looking for and your parameters.

I knew that I was dating with the intentionality I wanted to get married again. I didn’t want a booty call. I didn’t want to hook up. I was working full-time so I am not living off of Mark’s social security. Everybody has a different situation. To my gold star widows or widowers, there are parameters. There are people in situations where they may want to get remarried, but there are constraints economically that they need to operate in and respect that.

All of those things dictate what your dating experience may look like. There may be some people that are dating this widow and don’t want to look like they’re a bag for somebody. All of those things need to be identified. When I started dating, no, he was not on BlackPeopleMeet.com. I did meet this one guy. I never met him in person, but from when talking to him on the phone and everything, I thought it was going to be it. He wanted somebody that was going to be a little bit more quicker and loose than what your girl was.

I didn’t make the cut and I’m okay with that. I was on BlackPeopleMeet.com, I was on 50-something. If you name them, I probably was on those. I was on Bumble. I did all that. I had met this one guy when I was living in Pennsylvania. He lived in Richmond and we were talking back and forth and it dissolved. It did not work out after because what your girl does do is I ask a lot of questions like, “You are not going to be dating me and can’t talk.” After a litany of questions and spending time with him, the truth came out. I was like, “I’m done with this. When I move to Virginia, I will consider dating again.” I didn’t want to do it.

One of the guys I was in the Army with, I saw that he had announced that he had gotten married and he was like, “I am never doing this again.” He had gotten married before. He texted me and he was like, “Are you dating?” I said, “Absolutely not.” He was like, “You better get your butt out there.” I was like, “I don’t want to do this. It’s so hot garbage out there.” He was like, “Ma’am.” I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do it.” It was my birthday and then someone gave me a gift card. I want to say it was $50. I used that gift card to sign on Zoosk. I signed on that dating app. I talked to this one guy, we had dinner.

I still talked to him. He’s a pretty decent guy. The next person I talked to was Fred. We had been talking maybe 2 or 3 days and I had learned people ghost you. People from different places pretending that they are. After a couple of days, I said, “I want to meet you in person and I need to see that you look like what your profile look like,” because I met people like they’re talking about they’re six feet. I’m like, “Why am I looking at the top of your head if you are six feet? No, sir. That is not correct.”

I was like, “I don’t want to be wasting my time with folks.” We met for coffee and I was dusty. Some people have been widowed and they got a fire burning inside. I had no fire. I thought I was about to become a nun. We met and he stood up and I said, “I’m a hugger.” He said, “I’m a hugger too.” I was like, “We are no longer dusty. Okay, Houston, we are alive.” I hugged him and it felt like home. We sat there in that coffee shop and talked for about 2 or 3 hours and neither of us can remember years later what we talked about. That is the place we go to for our wedding anniversary to just sit there and remember that this is where we met.

Let me be clear. A lot of trash, a lot of hot garbage, a lot of swiping left. The thing about dating, you have to give yourself to the experience to get to know someone, which makes your heart vulnerable to be hurt. There’s really no other way to get to meet somebody unless you make yourself available. I also learned how to swipe left real quick.

When I was dating, I didn’t use my real phone number. I had a Google Voice phone number because your phone number’s connected to your credit and your job and a lot of stuff. When I was dating, I always met in a public space. I always made sure that someone knew where I was and I was going that whole gamut to be safe.

Also, I just want to put it out there, it’s fine if you don’t want to date, it’s fine if you’re not looking for the next marriage. I get so much pushback. I’m not ready to date. I’m not saying that I’m dusty. I know what you’re saying because honestly, I did think I was dusty until I met this gentleman and I said, “Marcia is alive.” I know what that is like.

When you asked me about moving forward, I said moving forward is about loving me. Moving forward is that continuation of life. Dating and all this other stuff is not for other people. That is not equating moving forward. Moving forward is when I say, “I’m not going to sit in bed all day and I’m going to get up today and I’m going to go for a walk.”

Moving forward is when I return back to work to my job. Moving forward is when I got to have lunch with a girlfriend or went to visit my sister. That was the decision to continue living in a life that I love. Dating was ancillary. That was the furthest thing from my mind. Moving forward was that recapturing life for me.

I feel like for me it’s getting to know me without Noah. I have to do other things in order to know what I like and who I am going to be. Compared to everything was, “Am I going to do this? Is it going to affect Noah? Am I going to do that? Is it going to affect us?” To me, that’s what moving forward means. What I was saying is that some people of the male persuasion have the opinion that if you are not doing all of those things, dating, hooking up and all the rest of that stuff, then you’re just wasting your life and their time.

Sir, there is more to life than you.

Even if you say, “This is not what I’m looking for,” but they want to tell you what you should be.

That means you are a swipe left for me and we would need to spend zero more time together because you are not mature enough to understand I’m a whole grown woman. I will dare say there is something different about dating someone because they want you, not because they need you.

I was not dating you because I’m looking for you to do my nails. I’m not dating you because I need you to pay to get my hair done or pay my mortgage or pay for my car note. No, God is already taking care of me. I am fine. It is whether or not you appear to be compatible to live life with me and coexist and dream together and hope together and meet somebody there. I don’t need to have you. I need air.

The Challenges Of Moving Forward

You just don’t know you are speaking to my soul. In moving forward, you took the time to grieve to a certain extent, but then you got up and you went back to work and you started doing external things outside of the house. How difficult did you find that? I asked that because I did a live on tiktok and I was saying how it’s cold up here in the Northeast and it’s so easy to stay in the house in self-isolate and get caught in that, “I don’t need to be out and I don’t need to be around people,” and then fall down that hole. How difficult was that for you to decide, “This is what I need to do?”

It was extremely difficult. It was so hard because your home does become your cocoon. It becomes your safe space. It becomes your oasis. You spend time there because noise, the vibration, everything seemed extreme. The sun was too bright. Being outside of my house was hard. It made me feel vulnerable because my husband dying was a true sense of I have control of nothing in this world.

Every time I had to leave my house, the stress, the anxiety, the buildup of that. It took me three months to go back to work. I was sitting in the house thinking, “Maybe I don’t go back to work. Maybe I don’t do this.” I was like, “Tina, how many cats and dogs you going to have if you do that? You still have a career. You still have stuff you have to do.” That is why having my therapist was a proactive part of me leaning into my grief. Her challenging me, her giving me assignments, her making me be reflective, her making me deal with any what if statements, not being in denial, being free to express my emotions that I did want to continue living.

The problem was Mark died and life without him seemed unbearable. I remember pulling up to the parking lot at work, going into my office and everybody going, “She’s back,” and staring because where I work, a lot of people knew. People coming to my cube. I’ll never forget this one person. I’ve been back to work, maybe it was the first day and this person came up to me and they were like, “I’m so sorry that your husband passed but I’ve never been married. At least you were married.” I was sitting there and I was frozen. I couldn’t move. A friend saw me and she came and interrupted the conversation and walked me back to my cube.

The mental fog and grief brain is a real thing. My cognitive skills were slow. Me driving was a danger. I was trying to make sure and focus and I would drift off and start thinking about Mark died and having to go home. Our routine was me going to the grocery store, the bags into the vehicle, I pull up to the house, the kids unpack the groceries, Mark would do something for dinner. Now all that was on me. I was in the grocery store crying because I was like, “I’ve got to go home and take the groceries out and I’ve got to do all this.” We went with a food delivery service. I went with a Blue Apron.

All of that changed and it was hard. I had to start figuring out ways to change my pattern. I had to change the direction of our furniture because when I came in the house, I may have expected somebody to be sitting somewhere and doing that. The muscle memory had to change by changing the furniture and where it was to give me a different response when I came into the house. I changed what was bedrooms and other different things, just moving things around the house to give myself a fresh perspective.

Moving To Virginia

I think that must be the go-to, to make changes in the house because I did read that, but I also did the same exact thing. For the most part, everything we did in here was a joint effort. The furniture, the bedroom furniture, the living room furniture, the basement furniture, everything was a joint effort. I realized that what I was doing initially, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I started making these changes and I realized I am now trying to find out who Marcia is and what Marcia likes. That was us. There was nothing wrong with us, but there is no more us. Now I have to figure out who I am and what I like. Yeah, I definitely get that. When you moved down to Virginia, did you buy new furniture or did you keep the same furniture?

A mixed match of the scenario. Our son moved to Texas and he took what was the original front room furniture. He took the dishes that we had. I gave away a ton of stuff because I was downsizing to less than half of the space that we lived in before a different configuration. The purge had to happen. That was forced upon me by relocating. I purchased some furniture from someone else. I think when I look at now, I have the same bedroom set that Mark and I had and I have the same dining room table and chairs. Besides that, every room is different.

When you come home you say, “I’m home.”

When I first came here from Pennsylvania, moved to Virginia, I was renting a space. When I tell you, my tribe is my backbone, my siblings and my friends. Some people say, “People didn’t show up for them and they weren’t there,” like you were discussing in the beginning of your podcast. I believe that God assigned these people to me to give me a full cup to pour out of because my friends, my siblings have toed the line.

My friends have increased, not decreased. People did things for me and they showed up and did what they said they were going to do. Case in point, when I relocated from Pennsylvania to Virginia, my friends and my sister, my stuff, household items came maybe about a week or two before me. They unpacked my bedroom, my bathroom, the closet, and the kitchen.

They made sure that when I got here there was a tub with hot water and a bottle of wine. They said, “Can we do anything for you?” I was like, “I’m going to be driving from Pennsylvania to Virginia. Where am I going to sleep? How’s this going to work?” He is like, “We got you. Say less.” When I got here, the bed was made. There was a cold bottle of wine and a glass.

When I got here, my sister and some friends met me and they hugged and kissed. I came in the house and I took that bath and I cried and I talked to Mark and I was like, “I’m here. I made it to Virginia. I did what we said we were going to do. I don’t know where we’re going from here, but I made it and I miss you so much.” I just took it step by step.

When you made it there, was that the finality of your vow? Was that, “I did what we said we were going to do?” Was that it there or were there other promises that you two made or just visions that you two had together that needed to be fulfilled?” Noah was born in Africa. His dad was in the service. We used to always say, “We’re going to go back.”

I wanted to go back so bad with him and actually, the year he passed away, we were going to plan it for then. I still want to go back. I still want to go there to see where he was born and everything like that. It’s no longer an us trip. I think I look at it a little bit differently than if he and I were doing it together. I say all of that to say were there any other plans that you made that no longer existed because it was no longer an us thing or were there other things that you had to carry out just to complete it because it was an us thing?

I was thinking as you were explaining that, moving to Virginia was one of our biggest goals. The children were getting older, we were going to be empty nesters and we were going to relocate in downsize. Living in that house in Gloucester is never going to happen as far as I know because that is just so painful. The thought of going back to that house without him. I’ve been to the house, it’s rental property, but moving back to Virginia was the biggest thing that we were going to do.

The next thing would be, I think, giving myself permission to live and love was something he gave me permission to do and doing that was the next item that I was able to carry out. Making myself the focus, making myself the priority and choosing to live and work out and do stuff. We often talked about me getting a Jeep Wrangler and I did purchase one of those. Her name is Misty Knight for all my Jeep Wrangler gals and guys out there. If you have a Jeep Wrangler, hit me up. I’m about that Jeep Nation and I love that. Besides that, it hasn’t been anything else.

Never Compare Your Grief Journey

I think that I’ve come to the end of my questions. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us that I haven’t touched on?

I want to reiterate the idea that moving forward is what we do every time we get up after our person is no longer here. Do not allow someone else to frame for you what moving forward looks like for your own life. You and someone else may be grieving the same person, but your relationship with them, your connection with them is different and you’re a different personality.

The way that you grieve them will be different. Do not compare your grief journey to someone else. I encourage you to hear other people’s grief journey and pluck out the things that resonate for you and make them part of your grief journey and decide the things that fit you. I want to encourage you to seek community. Connecting with other people who understand how you feel, has a way of validating your feelings. I will never tell another widow or widower, “I know how you feel,” because I don’t.

I know how I feel after my husband Mark passed, but I don’t know how Marcia feels from Noah passing because she’s a unique person. Her marriage to Noah was unique. Only her and him know what that looks like. I can sympathize, I can relate, but I will never say, “I know how you feel,” because I consider it off basis. I encourage you to know you’re not alone and to seek community and connection because it does help to be with other people who understand you.

Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words

Thank you so very much. I really appreciate you Ms. Tina. This has been an eye-opener. This has been confirming. It’s just like you were speaking directly to me about how I feel about all of this. I appreciate it. I would love for us to get together again further down the line and maybe have another conversation. I don’t know what that conversation will be, but I would love for it to happen further down the line.

I look forward to seeing you on TikTok as I do. Your journal readings are so poignant. When you say you wouldn’t say to someone, “I know what you’re going through,” when you read your journal entries, you’re saying, “I know what you’re going through,” because the things that you share are exactly what I think and what I’m going through. You just did at the one-year mark, and I’m like, “That’s exactly how I feel at the one-year mark.”

It may not be exactly for everyone, but the information you’re giving about what you went through and how you felt at these points are resonating with so many people. It’s like being sick. You just want to confirm that you’re sick. When you’re grieving, you just want to confirm that there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re okay. You have to go through the process and your readings are definitely helping through the process. I appreciate that.

I just want to share what Marcia is relating to. Every Wednesday for the year of 2025, I am sharing a journal entry. I was using this book, Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones, Finding Hope and Healing. This is literally my journal that I was writing in. Every week, I’m sharing a different entry from this conversation and that is what I’m doing.

I wrote that many years ago. It was what I was doing to survive. I came across it as I was cleaning up in my office and in the house. I was thinking, “This could be boring. People may or may not be interested in it,” but it was like a lot of people see me years into a very long, tedious process. I was like, “This would be a opportunity to share with people what my process, journey and struggle look like to get to the space that I’m in.” As I said, a lot of work. It may look different from somebody else, but this is what it took for me to get here and part of that. There’s insight into my whole head into that process.

I’m going to tell you, it’s much appreciated.

You are so welcome, Marcia. Thank you for this opportunity. My first episode was my girlfriend, Jerri. You saw that one, Jerri interviewing me. It’s been a while. Thank you. It was good to do something different. I appreciate it.

I appreciate all the help. You have helped me with this because there were so many things that weren’t connecting on my part and you’ve just been so humbling to help me the way that you have. I really appreciate all the help that you’ve given.

You are welcome. We are on this journey together and there’s one thing about your spouse passing and make other things at minimum. It’s like, “It’ll work out.” If we’re really going to be here to help each other, sometimes it costs you a little to help other people and I’m okay with that. I want to say thank you to everyone that has been part of this conversation and I encourage you to share your comments, share what moving forward looks like for you. Reach out to Marcia on her podcast. More than anything else, I am so sorry for the person that you have lost who has brought you to this conversation. I’m glad that you found us and allowed us to be part of your community on this journey. I’ll see you next time.

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I want to say thank you for every episode that you have read, every episode you have shared and the comments that you have made. I am so honored to be able to share and support you. I am inviting you to help celebrate my birthday. For the month of May, your celebration is the donation of $5 in the month of May, 5 and 5. See what we’re doing there?

Widowhood Real Talk With Tina is a nonprofit registered 501(c)3 and your donations help us continue the show. You can do that by texting Hope For Widowhood to 53555. $5. Every person that’s read one episode who will donate $5 would help us continue doing the great work and serving the bereaved. We do that by hosting mental health events. We have a Walk for Love. You helped us support our Memorial Garden, our butterfly release ceremony, a celebration retreat at the end of the year for widows and widowers. You are helping us provide books for people that are newly bereaved, a grief support group, and so much more. Your donation helps us help others. Thank you so much for texting and donating $5 by texting Hope For Widowhood to 53555. Thank you.

Important Links

• What’s Grief Amongst Friends
• Black People Meet
• Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones, Finding Hope and Healing
• Tina’s Story: Healing From The Death Of The Person We Planned To Spend Our Life With – Past Episode