Love changes us—but sometimes in ways we don’t fully realize until we look back. In this heartfelt reflection, we explore the transformative power of loving someone deeply and how that love shaped the person I became. From lessons in vulnerability to the growth sparked by connection, this story dives into the ways love challenges us, teaches us, and ultimately helps us evolve. Discover how love isn’t just about the other person—it’s about who you become in the process.
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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Who I Became Because I Loved You
Dedication, Purpose, & Intentionality
Welcome to who I became because I loved you. Throughout March, I am dedicating this show to my late husband, Mark Fornwald. He left this world on March 11th. In each episode, it is part of an intentional space of remembrance, reflection, and honesty. These conversations may feel a little different than a typical show. Some moments are spoken directly to Mark, some are communicated to you, and some are simply love continued out loud. If you’re joining mid-month, you haven’t missed anything. You need to be here. This is not a series that requires catching up on. Only presence.
Mark, I am speaking to you again and letting others listen in. The first question. Mark, would you recognize me now? I think the answer is yes and that’s based on a show that I’ve done with my daughter and my son. Both of them have articulated in their own way that I’m showing up in Tina brand. That if something happens, I give myself to it. I challenged myself with it. I address it and I keep going. Mark would say, “You did this pretty much as I thought you would.”
Personal Transformation & Boundaries
I have grieved him probably every day since he has been gone for years and yet I still keep living. I keep showing up and living my life intentionally. That is done intentionally with this show. It’s done intentionally with the work that I do, with this nonprofit Widowhood Real Talk with Tina, with every retreat that I host, the event that we are hosting on May 16th on Norfolk called Hope Grows Here. Mark would probably look at say, “That’s what I thought that you would do.”
I am glad that I have continued being who I am under different circumstances but yet being the woman that I am. Do you know which parts of me were born after you left? Absolutely. I had experienced breast cancer before Mark passed. In that process, my no game was starting to develop. Where I could say no for something without question, don’t ask me about it because no was in complete answer. After Mark’s death, my no game became even stronger because I don’t know my moment, my hour or my second when I will no longer be in this world.
My ‘no’ became stronger when I realized I don’t know how many moments I have left. Share on XI can say no to something that I don’t want to do. That was birthed out of him. This nonprofit that I run, this whole show that we’re having was birthed out of Mark leaving this world. Looking at life differently, he would be surprised about my ability to be a little bit sloppier, ability to not care about things being cleaned up as much as they were. He also would be surprised about my ability to be late sometimes. It was so important for me to always be on time. Part of that is that I am a retired army officer, but now there are some things that’s like, “If I get there on time, it’s fine.”
Grief & Emotional Reality
He would also be surprised because my daughter does not stress me out. I go, “Nobody died then it’ll be okay. It will work itself out.” He would be surprised about that. Do you know what grief demanded of me? When I read that question, I had no idea the amount of phone calls I had to make in that first year to say, “My husband died.” I needed to change the electricity out of his name into my name because my husband died. To call his employer and tell them, “My husband died and he will not be returning to work.” All of those conversations.
We had a plan mentally what the other person would do in the absence but had no concept of the emotional weight of caring about life, all the paperwork, waking up every day and being like, “Sam, Tina, Mark died. Don’t expect him to be here.” To intentionally have to tell myself to practice saying Tina instead of Mark and Tina. The weight of not being able to sleep at night, laying in bed and looking at the pillow that he would not sleep on. That weight, that stress, I certainly didn’t expect it, and I don’t think that he could have expected what grief would demand of me.
I was struggling with going back to work, to wonder if I could think and have conscious thoughts that would allow me to perform a job. The mental fall and the forgetfulness. All of that. I don’t think he realized the grief, his absence, his death would demand that of me. Do you know how loving you prepared me for becoming someone new? What comes to mind is Mark’s family.
Grief demanded more of me than I ever imagined. Share on XI had a lot of people that died at an early age, and because of that, we had several conversations about him leaving this world and the life that he wanted me to have in his absence. What kind of love? What kind of amazing man would be intentional about telling his wife, “When I have left this world, I want you to continue living. I want you to be happy. I want you to be free to love again.”
When we would stay up late and he would have those types of conversations. In my mind, I was blowing him off. I was half-listening and thinking, “You’re staying up too late. I need you to go to bed because this is too much.” It was a gift that he gave me. When he did take his last breath, I knew how he felt. I didn’t have to wonder. I didn’t have to guess. I knew how he felt about me continuing to live in his absence. That prepared me for being the woman that I am now because of the conversations that we had. I am grateful for them.
This conversation is to the audience, to you, the readers. One week has passed since Mark’s death anniversary. Not feeling as numb as I did the day before. It’s the day before and the days later that linger like some grief hangover, the numbness, the trying to put my thoughts back into place, and thinking about what I was doing the first week after Mark died years ago. Those thoughts return, remembering what I was doing, who was in our home, who was helping me, and what I was planning. Realizing that week in 2017, I thought life was never going to be of any value. Life was never going to be fun. That I would never laugh again. How would I get past that week years ago?
To think years later, I do laugh. I am happy that things did change. I have continued living forward, never forgetting Mark, always loving him but also choosing to love myself. Also, give him myself permission to live, to be happy and to be here and to share with you, reassuring readers they are not lost. That was the next question because I wrote these. I want to say I wrote these up and then I put them aside because when I wanted to have this conversation with you, I wanted to be fresh just like when I have a conversation with the guest. I’m asking them questions and they don’t know what’s coming next. That’s why I put these questions aside.
I do laugh again. I am happy again. I kept living forward—never forgetting. Share on XThese questions in conversation would be first to you. You have purpose. You have meaning. Your life is important. The fact that you are still here, I am grateful for that. If you’re able to lean in to hear my voice and my story, how difficult it was years ago, and to see that life has the potential to change differently. That grieving is necessary. There is someone that you love that is no longer here. How you feel about their absence is worthy of how you feel. I invite you to reach out to me, to reach out to someone, find your doctor or someone at work or a therapist and share how you’re feeling. You don’t have to run from your emotions and your sadness.
It’s okay how you feel. Your feelings are valid. Don’t hold it all inside. Share it with someone. Join a grief support group. Reach out to your therapist. You’re not alone. There are other people that can help you navigate, give you guidance and help you build coping skills as you go through this difficult journey. Will it make the pain go away? It won’t make them come back. It will be difficult, but it will be worth learning how to navigate because you are still here and we need you.
Part three, story and experience. This is to you and to Mark. Who were you before March 2017? I was this person at work thinking about work until I was 65. Mark was in Virginia and I was trying to get a job from Pennsylvania to Virginia to be with him so we could start planting our next phase of our life, what retirement would look like, and starting to prepare for that. I was this person excited about work, thinking about where my career will go, thinking about both of our children, being adults, and leaving the house and Mark and I being child-free.
I was a person with expectations of what life was going to look like and the future that we were going to have together. What changed immediately? Hope. I feel like hope was snatched from me. When Mark took his last breath, hope felt like it was destroyed. It’s like I couldn’t find it. I’m slowly feeling like, did this happen? My ability to think rationally slowly started to dissipate. It was challenging for me to drive and get off on the right exit.
Grieving is necessary. How you feel about their absence is worthy of how you feel. Share on XI would just start daydreaming in the midst of things. One thing that was very clear to me early on. In fact, the night that Mark died, my daughter, Catherine, asked me, “Mom, was Dad the love of your life?” I was like, “This girl wants a Disney answer.” I had to tell her. She came to me while I was in the middle of the shower, the first shower I’ve taken. She rips the curtain open and asks that question.
Self-Love & Rediscovery
I’m looking at her and I’m like, “Catherine, I love your dad and I will love him forever but I cannot say that he’s the love of my life because if he is the love of my life and he is dead. What is left for me to live off of? I have to be the love of my own life. My relationship with God has to be equivalent to that. I cannot say your dad is the love of my life because I have to have love here for me to live off of.”
The importance of those statements set the tone of how I saw my grief. Mark’s life was over. Mine was still continuing and if I’m still here, I have purpose and a reason to be here then I have to fight through all of my pain, suffering, grief, and confusion to find out what that is day by day. Whether it was through journaling, reading and understanding what grief look like. It’s for me to just keep living. It has been an intentional purposeful walked for me to understand how I grief Mark is different the way someone else make grief their spouse or their loved one. To validate that for myself and give myself permission and know it’s okay.
I don’t think the unexpected strength that emerged was unexpected because to the core, I am pretty much the same person. I just didn’t know what it would look like under these circumstances because I had never considered Mark’s death, how grief altered my confidence, my faith, my body and my voice. Not being Mark’s wife seemed like someone snatched part of my identity. It was like I was a different person. I also felt like I was a single mother and how society looked at me being a Black woman with these light-skinned babies from this White man going on, “What happened there? Where is the daddy at?”
It was my personal faith in God that held me up and what I believed to be true. Share on XRealized saying that wasn’t my story. My husband died, but thinking about how people perceived me. That was hard. Look at faith, Mark died. How did that impact my faith? I was still trusting God, but I had a hard time being in church. I realized that a hard time being in church is because that’s the place we served together. My husband was an Usher. I am an ordained minister. We had different roles in our church. Going into the house of worship, where I had a strong memory of my husband being there, greeting people was devastating.
Going into church was too hard. I spent that time visiting all the people who I said I would one day visit their church. Going into my church in the space where our new husband sat and where he stood took me out just driving into the parking lot and I couldn’t do it. It was about a good 6 to 9 months before I went back to my own church because I couldn’t take the pain of his absence. I spent that time as I said going to other people’s churches reading in the word, understanding what my personal faith was about life after this world was over. Scouring the Bible verses to see what is said about what happened to the soul when it’s life was over.
I dug in deeper to my faith to ground myself on what I said I believed in. God’s strength was important to me and what held me up because nothing else could do it. There was no worse than anyone could say. There was no pack answer anyone could give me. It has to be my personal faith in God that held me up and what I believed and knew to be true. As for my body, the lack of eating. I was like, “I’m just going to work out since I’m up 24 hours a day.” I moved the elliptical machine into the front room because I was home alone. I was like, “If I’m up watching TV, then I’m going to be on the elliptical getting a grind on. What else am I going to do?”
I literally was so thin. Looking at pictures of myself that first year is looking like I’m in a daze and lost because I was. I’m always a yakker. I’m always talking and I didn’t stop talking, totally but I was quiet. What I did know enough that when people asked me things, I started answering them and teaching them how to support me, how to help me. That was a gift that I’m glad that I was able to give myself to show the people in my community to know how to support me.
Thank you for the love that continues, even as it changes shape. Share on XWhy is identity reconstruction normal? Many times, I hear people saying, “I want my old life back. I want to return to who I was.” It’s impossible. Mark is never coming back. I will never actively be Mark Fornwald’s wife. I had to come to terms with who Tina is. That Tina is enough. That Tina not being Mark Fornwald’s wife is okay. I had to start going, what type of food do I like? What are my favorite colors? What movies would I go to?
My daughter came home one time to visit me and she smelled candles burning. She was like, “I’ve never smoked candles burning in this house.” I was like, “It’s because your dad didn’t like the scent, so I didn’t burn the candles.” I like candles so I bought them and it smelled amazing in the house. I didn’t like the dishes that we had. I went and purchased some different ones. I cleaned out all the food in the pantry, in the refrigerator and gave it to my neighbors. I figured out what I liked to eat. Mark had passed the children in the military and I was home alone and I started discovering myself.
It was hard. I was crying in their grocery store but I realized I do not like grape jelly. Every PB&J I had, it was because of Mark and those kids. I like orange marmalade and I found that out. I started making it for me to figure out what I enjoyed. It’s giving myself permission to enjoy it and go, “We’re here, girl. We’re going to do this.”
Why Becoming Is Not Betrayal
Why becoming is not betrayal. I was not betraying Mark by becoming who I am in his absence. If anything, I was honoring him. Honoring our love, our relationship, and myself. I didn’t cause his death. I didn’t want his death to happen, but it’s the world that we live in that one day I will be gone and my children or whoever is remaining will grieve for me. I want them to continue living. I want them to honor their life. This is the natural course of what happens. It’s not a betrayal. If anything, it’s honoring for me.
Grief is not just sadness. It impacts your body, your faith, your mind, your voice. Share on XWhy Growth Does Not Mean Forgetting
Why does growth not mean forgetting? I have remarried and I still carry Mark’s last name. I have a whole nonprofit supporting the Berett. I will never ever forget Mark Fornwald. He is why I am who I am. Growth is me becoming Dr. Tina Fornwal, teaching a class on grief, and hosting a show. That is me growing in different ways and the woman I was when he was here.
Once again, I feel like it’s honoring him. Not a betrayal. What I wish I had known earlier? I wish I knew that grief was more than just being sad. It took a lot of reading, a lot of therapy, a lot of talking to other grievers to understand the full complexity. I don’t even know if I could say full, but I’ll just say complexity. I’ll have conversations with people and then they will still surprise me as I learned something more about grief.
Understanding that grief impacts me physically, spiritually, and neurologically. Grief impacts you in so many different ways. Grief is not just being sad. That is something I wish I knew early, because to me knowledge is power. If I know a thing, then I’m already prepared for it. That would have helped me to know how to show up differently or have an expectation of what was coming my way.
Part five, Mark, you loved a version of me that made this version of me possible. I carry my love forward. Becoming did not erase you. It honored you. I have not erased Mark Fornwald. It is impossible but the life that I lived now is because of Mark Fornwald. I love him many years later and I miss him dearly. I was away visiting some friends and thinking about when I visited them with Mark there and how different my life is. Also, how easy it is that Mark’s friends allowed me to still talk about Mark.
They don’t make it weird or uncomfortable. They make it natural and I am grateful for that. As I close, I want to return this space to you, Mark. Thank you for the love that continues even as it changes shape. Thank you for the ways you still walk with me through memory, meaning, and presence. To those reading, thank you for sharing this time with me. I hope you felt less alone and more permitted to honor your own love in whatever way feels right. We’ll continue holding space together through the rest of March.
