No one deserves to lose their spouse in an untimely manner, but such is the bitter reality of life sometimes. Yolanda White became a widow at a pretty young age, and she initially drowned in isolation and depression. But thanks to social media, she found a community that helped her through the grieving journey and allowed her to undergo an intentional healing process. Tune in to our conversation as Yolanda looks back on the challenges of navigating grief with young children, the difficulties of celebrating holidays and anniversaries after her husband’s passing, and the importance of focusing on self-care despite the sadness.
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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Yolanda White’s Intentional Healing Journey
Welcome, Yolanda. Normally, I say welcome to the widowhood, but I don’t know right now. I’m just going to say we are here. I want to say thank you for wanting to have this conversation. This is something people do not want to do, but I feel like for you, it’s part of your healing. It’s part of your coming to terms to not let it swallow you up, but that’s my perspective. Why are you wanting to have this conversation?
When I first became a widow, I started to look for support, but I couldn’t find anyone who looked like me. My idea in my head of what a widow was and that picture when I close my eyes and hear that word is an 80-year-old woman or someone who has lived their entire life with their spouse and has grandchildren and fulfilled this dream that I had and that got ripped away from me.
As I was looking out on the internet for support groups and things, I wasn’t finding anyone who faced the same struggles that I did, or at least someone who was vocal about it. I chose to live this journey out loud and ask questions and see if there were other people who could relate or give me advice. In turn, that ended up finding you and a ton of other people on social media.
It’s just been a really cool experience to know, A, that I’m not alone and B, I’m now helping people. That wasn’t my intention. I was like, “Help me,” in the beginning and now we all help each other. It’s just been a really cool community to form. I actually met someone in person that lives local to me that I met on TikTok. Do you know Liz Cannon?
Yeah.
I never imagined that it would turn into this. I’m glad that I stopped being afraid and I just put myself out there and started talking.
You said so much. One, Liz is one of the board members of Widowhood Real Talk with Tina.
I didn’t know that.
I want to circle back. You said you didn’t see someone that looked like you. How much did that impact you feeling like you were widow and not seeing someone that represented you?
In a big way? It made me feel alone. It made me cry.
Finding Support On Social Media
You mentioned about not seeing someone that represented you. How impactful was that to your journey or your grief?
I felt very alone and hopeless there. A lot of times, like you, I look for other people and those who have gone before me so I can follow in their footsteps. I just didn’t see that. I didn’t see anyone who had gone before me, who was 39, had plans and dreams for the rest of my life with him. We’ll get into this, I’m sure, but I didn’t just lose him. I also lost my three stepdaughters. It was a lot at once. They’re still living, but unfortunately the relationship has been severed.
Thank you for sharing that. I’m going to say this for you. You lost your husband by him taking his own life. Someone has taken their life young, hopeful and now alone and feeling like no one can relate to you. You find out on social media that there are other people and people go, “I’m not going to go on social media. That’s just so weird. You don’t have anybody you know? You have friends and family, don’t you?”
I’m going to say this, our friends and family love us, but they oftentimes do not have the mental capacity, knowledge, or emotional bandwidth to know how to show up for us. It drives us to people that can validate, understand and relate because so much of this we cannot really articulate. When you’re in a space with another person that’s lost a spouse, you can almost start a sentence and go, “Yeah,” before you have even. What did you think about going to social media for your grief?
My very first video was after my husband took his life. I don’t have local family. My family was here. My mom stayed with me for I think six weeks. My sister came. It had been a total of like seven and a half weeks where someone was in my home because I also have three children. Someone was here to help because I was just a mess.
At that time, this was before EMDR, I should say I found my husband. There was an image and a video, if you will, of that moment that would replay. I was just numb. That very first night when there was no one here. No one was in my bed because my family was sleeping in my bed with me and I was alone. I just pulled out my phone. It’s been seven weeks or seven-and-a-half weeks. I asked the question, “If you’re a widow, how do you do this?”
The gates opened and people started commenting, connecting and following me and I was following them back. I got to find other people’s videos like yours. It wasn’t my intention. It just was a moment where I felt like I needed someone to talk to, and so I talked to my phone and it turned into this beautiful community.
Being Fearless And Raw In Life
You talked about you were not going to be scared anymore to do something. Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, absolutely. I have three different TikToks. I am a business owner and I created a TikTok for my business. I made another account for the nail art because I’m a nail artist and I was always too afraid to put myself out there. Can’t even access the other two accounts at this point because I got logged out and I can’t get back in, so they’re just out there. I had always been afraid to show my face. I guess at that point, when you’ve reached that level of life, you run out of Fs to give
We’re not on TikTok. You can use them whole words. You can say how you feel.
If you go back and look at that video, I was rough. I’m in my bed like the lights are off. I just was crying.
Sometimes, family and friends do not know how to support their grieving loved ones. Share on XThat’s what it looks like. You mentioned about being numb and you mentioned about being raw and life being at that level. When you thought what this would look like, how is this different than maybe someone you knew who lost their spouse and you went to their funeral casually and with your life? What did you think was really happening compared to what you found out?
I don’t even know. Honestly. I don’t even know. I didn’t have any answers. I think that was the hard part. I didn’t know what was next from day to day, from moment to moment. My grandfather passed away. This was the only example that I know of someone who was a husband. My grandfather passed away a year and one day before my husband. Obviously, I saw my grandmother in this grieving state. If you go back to that mental image, I had in my mind it was someone that was like my grandmother and I just felt like I got robbed.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Feeling like you got robbed makes sense. We know that we’re all going to leave this world at some point in time, but there’s never enough time and we’re never like, “That’s when it happened? I thought we would do all these other things.” You mentioned EMDR. Can you explain what that is and how that’s been a part of your journey?
Sure. Before I can explain that, I want to explain how I found my husband. If I received a message from him that was not like him.
Can we say your husband’s name? Is that okay with you?
Absolutely. His name is Timothy. Tim.
What do you call him?
I called him Tim. He was getting off work that day and I got a text that just said, “Off work.” Every single day, he would text me and say, “On my way home, baby.” I always knew that he was on his way home. I was at the table with my kids doing homework with them. I came in my room and I got another text message. That was Whitney Houston’s, I Will Always Love You song. Now let me say this. My husband was 45 and I’m 39. I’d always joke around and say he’s an old man. Seriously, when that song from The Bodyguard, Whitney uses that song, I don’t even know that I was allowed to watch that movie.
I feel like I need a walker because I’m over at 58.
It was a running joke. Our kids would say like, “Dad, you were seven and she was an infant,” just making it really weird. A running joke all the time. Anyway, I get this song and obviously, if you have air in your lungs, you probably know the hook, but you may not know the verses. I hit play on the song and the very first verse was saying like letting you go, essentially. I’m like, “What is happening? What is he talking about?”
I tried to call him, no answer. I text him back, “What does this mean?” He had read receipts on. My husband was a deputy and although he sometimes couldn’t answer the phone, he’d always even respond with his watch. “I can’t talk right now,” or something. He would answer my messages quickly. At least if I knew he read it, he was just busy, he couldn’t answer. It just showed delivered because we have iphones.
In that moment, something’s wrong. My two little ones were sitting at the table. I go into my oldest. My kids are 18, I have a senior in high school, 11 and 8. Boy, girl and boy. My eighteen-year-old was in his room doing homework. I’m like, “Can you please come out and watch the little ones for me? I need to go figure out where Tim is because he’s not answering. I just got a weird text.” He comes out.
We have Life360. Have you heard of that app where you can like see the location of your person? Okay, so we have the Life360 app. I start navigating to his location. The reason why I want to tell you this whole story is because I’m able to talk through this story because of EMDR. I could not get these words out of my mouth previously.
Okay, let me go back to where I was. I get in the car, I’m navigating to him, I hit the expressway and I get a phone call from my son and he says, “Mom, there are two deputies here at the house and they’re saying something about a text message to the captain.” My heart sunk. I think I knew already because we were so closely connected that something was off immediately. That was a confirmation for me. I asked my son, “Are you on my on speaker phone?” He says, “Yes.” “Please take me off speaker phone. In fact, give them my phone number and have them call me.” The deputies call me and I’m like, “What did the message say?”
They don’t know what the message said. They were sent out there to do a well check. They’re asking me where I am. I live in the suburbs. My husband worked at the courthouse in Downtown Tampa and I’m not familiar with that area because, honestly, I avoid downtown by any means, if I need to. I’m trying to go to the back roads.
They’re asking me where I am and I’m panicked and in a daze and I don’t know where I am and I’m just following navigation. I can’t tell them. They’re trying to get to probably get to him before I do. I pull up and I see his car is backed into the fire station and I can see his body slumped over. I don’t remember much of anything from that moment. My car door was open. I don’t recall putting my car in park. His patrol car door was unlocked and not thinking, I opened it, I’m touching him and I can see everything and I just collapsed.
I get up and I’m running around the car back and forth. Me describing this to you is what I had in my mind. Every time I close my eyes, every time I heard his name, it was that picture of him slumped over. That video, if you will, of how I found him. EMDR is eye movement desensitization, I believe it’s called, or rapid eye movement desensitization.
I had tried hypnotherapy and talk therapy. I had a grief coach and I just didn’t feel like those modalities were doing what I needed them to because I had heard of EMDR. I made a post on Facebook and asked if someone could point me in the right direction. Someone reached out to me and she has her own place and she does EMDR and her brother also took his own life. She also has a nonprofit.
Her name and what she does.
Her name is Nicole. Her brother’s name was Joey. For example, I am a Joey because the little Joey’s come in and they’re like the people that she’s able to help.
I’ll reach out to see if she would like to be on the show and share what she does.
She’s literally an incredible human. I’m drawing a blank right now because that’s what grief does to your brain on what the name of her actual nonprofit is. I will be sure to get that to you. Her name is Nicole. I go in and we talk through everything and I was holding these paddles in my hand. I don’t get it, I don’t do this. I had zero faith, if I’m being honest, that this was going to work. At this point I’m throwing spaghetti and seeing what sticks to the wall.
I hold onto the paddles, we relive what story with you. I just remember feeling so heavy and tense and I couldn’t even talk through all of it. When I left there, I was able to see my husband again. I was able to see Tim with a smile on his face. I wasn’t seeing him in that state anymore. That changed everything on my healing journey. I would not be able to have this conversation and this bed would not be made if I had not done EMDR, thanks to Nicole.
That right there, Yolanda, is powerful because just in this brief journey you’ve had, you’re probably connected to some people that feel like they will be stuck in a deep, sad place forever. They have come to terms with that they’ve accepted that there’s nothing that will help them. What I hear you saying is, “No, it’s got to be something. I’ve got to find what it is because I’m still alive and I have my children and my life before me.” You have not just been letting time elapse you’ve been doing some work in this journey of grief that is painful.
You just said a mouthful here because I think we have talked about this before and I just made a TikTok about it too. This is the second time that I’ve had to leave a group of fellow widows that just don’t have any hope. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do early on, to leave, but it is important of who you surround yourself with.
I surround myself with people like you or people like Liz that are going to show that life gets better and you don’t have to sit in that. Healing doesn’t mean that you are not hurting still. Healing doesn’t mean that you aren’t still sad and that you are no longer loving that person. That was my misconception in the beginning. I felt as though I had to be sad or else people would think I didn’t love him.
Okay, hold on right there, child. Say it again for the people in the back because, especially for us women, I feel society measures our grief by our lamenting outward. If you have been outside laughing, if you have been seen wearing something cute or doing something, “She’s over him already.” I will never, ever be over Mark. The duality of me living and missing him in the depths of my soul coexist. This is not one or the other. I don’t choose to not miss Mark and then not go to visit my kids. I don’t choose to not miss Mark and then not go to work. I’m a Marvel fan.
Can I tell you something?
Yes.
My husband is a huge fan of Captain America.
If you are grieving, find someone close to that person you can connect with. Grieving people usually do not know what they need. Share on XI went and saw the new one with my sister.
I’m taking my boys.
It’s so good.
In fact, so much so that we were able to put things, my husband was cremated and I sleep with a Captain America stuffy every night because one was in his casket and he was cremated with it. The other one, I sleep with. His whole patrol car had like on the headrest, the little bullseye or whatever of Captain America. I’ve got an air freshener in my car. Anyway. That’s so cool.
My Jeep has Misty Knight, which is an old school Marvel character and she has her shield on it because I have a Jeep Wrangler because I’m a Jeep girl.
My husband loved Jeeps. That was his dream car. I’m going to send you a video later. My son and I were going through a parking lot and there was a Jeep and there was a reddest bird I’ve ever seen in my life. It was just on this windshield. It felt like it was trying to get into the car and it was a Jeep. I stopped. I slammed on the brakes and recorded it. I’ll send it to you.
I’ll send you pictures of my Jeep, too. Somebody asked the Hulk like, “How do you turn into the Hulk quickly? Don’t you have to be mad to do that?” He said, “I’m always mad.” I say that because I’m always missing Mark. That is underlining in everything that I do. As you mentioned, being stuck there and seeing Tim in that place and trying to open your mind to be able to see the love you had for Tim and who he was because that last moment will be embedded in our mind. It’s so hard. You feel like you’re trying to swim through all of that to remember what they look like, who they were in this life we had. That was an important part. I say that because sometimes people go, “I don’t want to mention their name.”
When I ask you to say his name, the smile that came over your face. More often than not, we want to invoke their name. It’s not moored off the name that should not be mentioned and it’s in a hush. We want to say their name. We love them still now. We want other people to embrace it. We want to remember them. We want to cherish their memories. Being able to say their name is part of it. When I tell people that are not in a place of deep grief, they go. “It’s always, no matter you see me.” I was getting married and thinking, “I’m getting married because Mark is no longer in this world.” There’s that in the backdrop of everything,
What Happened After His Passing
Everything, every moment, every first. Let me tell you, Tim passed August 29th. The amount of firsts that came after that felt like blow after blow. It was a lot. The holiday season in itself can be heavy. It was intense from our wedding anniversary to Halloween, which was one of our fun things that we always did together with character costumes or whatever. Birthdays.
Let’s pause on Halloween for just a second. I don’t want to roll past that. You started out by saying, “How do I do this?” You reached out. You went to those groups. I want you to talk about how you did Halloween.
I didn’t.
No, hold on. You chose to identify how much of this you could or couldn’t do. You chose what you allowed your children to do. You didn’t snatch that. Can you elaborate how you intentionally went about that and what you withdrew from, how you did some self-care, how you managed the kids? You have little children. Halloween was a big thing and I know it was a lot. Going back to the, how do you, if you would explain that a little bit.
For Halloween, I wasn’t there yet. I was not there yet. My youngest was, he did go trick or treating. I think my daughter stayed home. I honestly feel like that is still a part of my memory that I don’t recall. There are pieces of time that probably are trauma-blocked. I want to say that Halloween is one of those. I do remember my friends because they knew how important it was. They showed up with boo baskets for my kids and bringing little crafts. Shout out to my friend Sarah.
She brought cool little things for us to paint and Halloween decorations because I didn’t have it in me. It was one of the first years that we didn’t carve pumpkins. We managed to get by. It wasn’t easy. As I started to do more of the work, Thanksgiving, I chose to host. That was our favorite holiday. Me choosing to host here required me to say no to what people expected from me to going to other family members’ homes because that’s what they’re used to.
Putting up boundaries because let me tell you, you talked earlier about how sometimes family doesn’t know or friends don’t know what to say or do or how to support and they think that you’re just going to be sad if you’re at home by yourself. While that may be true, it was still what was best for me. For the first time I think in my whole life I stood firmly on that.
It was intimate. My mom came, she cooked everything. My dad came. I had my best friends here with their families and even my best friend’s sister. We had the best time. In fact, I think that was the first post I made on my TikTok where it was just a slide of photos and I had a smile on my face.
Thank you for sharing that. Halloween is like the kickoff. Even if you don’t celebrate Halloween, it’s when people in the US we’re starting to get busy because Halloween comes in, right after that, it’s Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Year’s. This hustle and bustle is in the air. People are doing things and their absence is so loud.
I could tell you something. Tim’s funeral was on Friday and my sister got married on Sunday. You want to talk about acting? My son walked me down the aisle. I got to my seat and there was a tag on this seat with this photo of my sister and myself and my husband. It just had like in memory of this man, that was hard. That was the start of first, two days after his funeral.
Thank you so much for sharing that, Yolanda. As you talk about, first I want to speak and disclaim some thoughts. Just because you make it through the whole first year, you got to do that again and again. The first rips the Band-Aid off and you go, “I may need to have a plan for when that happens again,” or, “I need to figure out how I’m going to navigate that.”
Sometimes it becomes more intense because that first year, as you mentioned, there’s such a mental brain fog, we’re like in the life we’re living but not capturing everything and remembering. The further along we go on this journey, if we’re doing the work, our brain comes back to reality. Its function at the level in which we did before our loved one because the trauma of their death has impacted our brain in a way that people do not see.
They don’t understand that my prefrontal cortex and my amygdala and I’m in fight and flight mode and it’s cloudy. I look fine, but I really don’t remember what I did an hour ago and that is going on. That was the most challenging part for me being a high-functioning individual, to be like I can’t make the most basic decision. Needing to understand. That first year, I think I took some notes. I know I was there, I look back in my journal, but I don’t consciously remember all of that. It is draining. When you hear someone say grief is tiring or draining, what comes to mind for you?
My faith. You mentioned the word cloudy. I quite literally, it was like, do you know when you get a new mirror and there’s that film over it and you have to take it off? That is what I felt like there. Everything I saw had this film over it. It was just a while ago that the film was removed and now I quite literally can see more clearly. I’m remembering things in a different way. That tiring that exhaustion not being able to make basic decisions. Absolutely. I’m so thankful for the people who came and brought food because my kids would’ve been eating ramen noodles or cereal otherwise.
Those little things helped so much. Also, remembering. Someone asked me what I did for, I want to say it was like Christmas Eve. We just talked about this. What did I do for Halloween? I don’t remember. There are quite literally pieces of my life that I just don’t remember. You said high functioning for yourself. I never thought that I would not be able to ever get out of bed or take a shower or stop crying. It’s exhausting. Mentally, physically, emotionally exhausting.
In going back to your statement of how do I, that is how you do it because it is so exhausting. You talked about having boundaries, needing to say, “I can’t do all the things I was doing before. I barely took a shower this week.” The idea that you can stay in bed and people get up and do something. It’s not in me. That’s okay. You may not want to spend the next three years like that but I think it’s very well expected in the beginning of losing someone because we have all these things we have to do for their service.
You had your husband’s service and a sister’s wedding within days of each other. For your family, the emotional rollercoaster of trying to pivot and turn and do all of that is just and to be in a place to think, you think I’m just going to show up, the life is normal. You think I’m just going to keep it moving? If we don’t pause and take care of ourself, it will not be well.
After I started talking openly on social media, I also learned that there are so many people, including myself, prior to going through this that just don’t know what to say. I made a video and I said, “Please don’t do this. Please don’t compare your loss to my loss or say that you understand because you’ve lost whomever it may be.”
Yeah, I tagged in on that. I remember that.
Yeah, please don’t do that. I also have learned since then just to give people so much grace. In the same breath, I think that was helpful for others to learn from someone because most people are not bold enough to say, “Don’t compare.” Most people are like, “Thank you, I’m fine. Yes, you asked me if I quit. I’m okay.” Know the hell I’m not okay. I’m a big ass mess and I don’t know when I’m going to be okay. I know you don’t know what to say to me, so just don’t say anything. Most people don’t know how to say that.
Instead, they’ll take those feelings that someone has said and it just makes the grief worse. It just makes the situation worse because then you realize, “They really can’t relate to me. I really don’t have anybody. I really don’t know who is going through what I’m going through, who has been here and is going to find the right words.” When I started to make those videos, it was also to help people like my own family or my own friends know how to deal with me.
How To Show Support For Grieving People
I want to go back to your friends showing up Halloween and bringing the gifts and bringing the things for the children. From your lived experience, what are some other ways that you can think or recommend that people can show up or support or be there for someone that has lost a loved one?
Make sure you have your stuff in order. You just never know when death will come. Share on XI’ll tell you one way not to. Don’t ask me if I’m okay. Don’t ask someone who just lost someone if they’re okay because they’re not okay. I know most people just don’t know what to ask. I would recommend finding someone who is close to that person that you can connect with to really find out what it is they need because the person who is grieving doesn’t know what they need. My mother and my sister were able to take that over for me. The things that I’ve found most helpful were meals, but not every day. Spread them out because then you end up with this influx of food in the beginning. When everyone leaves you, you are eating ramen noodles again because no one’s there.
Saying, “Can I bring you something in a month? Can I help you a month from now, two months from now?” In the beginning everyone is there, but it’s the people who show up later on who still check in on you when the dust has settled, those are the ones who make an impact that A, you’re going to remember and B, they show up when you’re very likely have run out of the other resources.
That’s what I have found most helpful. It’s not that I wasn’t grateful for everyone in the beginning, in the influx of love and support. Absolutely, I’m so thankful because of the love that I was wrapped in. I’m blessed. My kids and I are blessed because I know that there are many people who don’t have that level of support and community. Showing up later is one of the best things that I can say has been helpful.
One time, someone brought my kids and I dinner and it’s almost six months out. I didn’t know what I was going to make for dinner that week. It was perfect. Some days, just taking that extra time to add another package of ground beef to your chili and take it over to that person. The other thing that has been so helpful for someone who’s been helping me with cleaning my house or just sitting. I don’t need you to talk. I don’t want to talk about it. Some days, I don’t want to talk about it, but just sit there with me so I’m not by myself. Those are the things that were helpful for me.
Thank you for mentioning that. I really want to elaborate on the last one. Sometimes, I just don’t want to talk about it. How am I helping you if I’m just sitting there quietly and we’re not talking about it?
I don’t know. That’s a great question. Your presence is a present.
That part takes the weight off of someone that’s trying to come in, I’m trying to do this and that. I’m going to come here, I’m going to say this thing and I’m going to make her grief better and I’m going to fix this situation.
Good luck. There’s nothing you say or do is going to fix the situation. Just sit with me. Sometimes, all people need to know is, “If you want someone to come and sit with you, I’m available.”
That’s easy enough to do.
It costs nothing.
Is it okay if I cry with you?
Yes, it is okay. Just make sure you bring extra tissues.
Can I share memories of Tim with you?
That is my favorite thing, when people share their memories. On his birthday, his sister came to stay with me. Just hearing stories of their childhood and him throwing someone’s tackle box into the pond because he grew up in the country and him running away, those stories. We love to dance. This is so funny. She called him Joe Jackson because he choreographed a dance for them and he was being so strict on his siblings because they were going to be on a talent show. She said, “He was worse than Joe Jackson. Anytime we stepped wrong and we were offbeat, he was like, ‘No, do it again.’” they were little. I laughed so hard. We went and sat at the beach. It was also something that he loved to do. If you want to get me out of the house, the best way might be to do something that he and I love to do so I don’t have to go do that thing alone.
How Tim And Yolanda Met Each Other
If you were to speak to Yolanda on day one of Tim no longer be in this world, what would you tell her?
He’s still with you. You are lucky to have his love. Life will go on, but it’s going to look way different. You can do it.
How did you meet Tim?
Facebook.
He slid into your dms? How’d that work?
Let me tell you. You really want to know this story. It’s funny.
Yeah, we are here for this. This is called Real Talk. Do tell.
It’s funny because I’ve been married before. My ex-husband was a deputy as well.
Did they know each other?
They knew of each other. I think they had met okay before, but they weren’t like friends or anything like that. I guess I showed up in like people you may know or something like that. He sends me a friend request. This is when Facebook had like your top nine photos in this little grid. His top nine photos were, he had done some security details. It was him with Trump and one with Obama, another one with, I don’t know, some famous person.
I’m looking on my phone like, “Look at this guy, Photoshopping himself in with people.” If he is listening right now, he’s probably cracking up because I’ve told this story over and over again. I laughed and then I was like, “Yes, another deputy. No, not going to talk to him.” However, at that time I was working with a network marketing company and so my profile was public. When I would post photos of makeup I had put on or anything, anyone could see it. I have the following setting on Facebook. He was still following me, although I had not accepted his friend request.
He started commenting on my pictures. I posted a selfie and he commented like, “You’re so beautiful.” I messaged him and I said, “I just want you to know that my ex-husband and I, we’re still friends on Facebook. It’s amicable and he’s still my friend so he can see everything and you guys probably know each other.”
He said, “I creeped your page and I haven’t seen you post him in a long time. All the profile photos of him aren’t there anymore. I figured that you guys weren’t together.” I’m like, “Okay, CIA.” I still did not accept his friend request at that point. I made another post and he commented on it. This was now in December. When I went to his profile and I looked through, he had done a bunch of elf on the shelf.
You were snooping.
I’m looking.
Now you’re the CIA.
I told him to comment down and he’s still posting and commenting. What’s going on here? Let me go look at his page. I look. When I tell you elaborate, this man had elves floating in the bathtub with the Titanic music, talking about Rose and Jack. “I’ll never let go, Jack.” He had them taped to a wall with superheroes are going to get them, just this whole thing. Now, the elf on the shelf had never come to my house ever because I said I don’t have time for that level of ridiculousness. I just thought that the elf on the shelf was dumb.
Grieving people must live the life they no longer get to. Share on XI got Snoop on a stoop.
That’s so funny. After I saw that, I’m like, “That’s actually sweet,” so I accepted his friend request. At the end of December, I had gone to my parents’ house. My stepmom had French braided my hair. I don’t know how to braid. I cannot braid. I can do like a little thing here, but that’s it. No French braiding for me. No cornrows, no nothing. I hopped on Facebook. I’m not even joking. I’m sitting. I remember my stepmom behind me, braiding my hair. I’m on the floor, and I grabbed my phone. I opened it up and he posted a picture of his daughter’s hair that he had French braided. He taught himself how to do it on YouTube. Yes, girl.
Now you are like, “Okay, Daddy.”
Thank you. I’m like, “Okay.” I take a picture of my hair and I inbox him and I send him the picture.
You slid into his DM first?
That what the first, I guess technically it was first. I sent him a picture. I said, “I need to make an appointment with you because I just had to drive two hours to get my hair French braided.” That’s how the conversation started. After that, he asked me. He goes, “I had a thought,” and that was it. I responded. I’m like, “Okay, what was your thought?” He goes, “I just think I’d really like to get to know you more. Can I take you to lunch?” That was the key there, lunch, because am I right or am I right that most men want to take you to dinner and drinks. It was just a midday lunch.
Netflix and chill.
No, we aren’t chilling. No, we’re not doing that.
Hold on. Has he ever cornrowed your hair?
I do have a picture of him braiding mine. He braided my hair before. Yes, he did.
Is that one of the ones you provided me?
I don’t think so.
Can you share one of those?
Yes, I absolutely will. That’s how it started. We went to lunch and when I met him, not my type.
There was no chemistry instantly or something?
Physically. Not even so much. He was shorter than I’m used to. Now I have a whole lot of no business talking about somebody being short.
I was about to say, “Girl, how tall are we?”
We’re 4’ 11”. No business. He reminded me of Carlton from Fresh Prince.
Did he do the dance?
I have a video of that, too. I’ll send it to you. I have a video of that. My girlfriends asked me, “What do you think?” I said, “I don’t know, but he’s cool.” After that, I don’t even know what happened. I don’t know what happened. I made a TikTok about this. It was just a message to anyone who was in a relationship because going back to what I mentioned about me leaving another Facebook group, someone actually said that they were happy that their spouse passed away.
While I said that is heartbreaking to me because their relationship likely was not one that was happy. My message was if you are not a happy relationship, life is too short and please leave. I also said that love may not look like what you are looking for. Your person may not be what you’re used to. I actually said Tim was not my type. However, he was everything I never knew I needed and loved me in a way that I don’t know I’ll ever be loved again, but we’ll see.
I want to say thank you for sharing that. I am looking forward to getting the video and seeing the other different things because the love that we have for them is eternal. It goes on. I want to ask some more about your story, but I want to pause and speak to our widow sisters and widower brothers who were not in a good place in their marriages.
I am so sorry because that provides another layer of your grief. I’m actually happy for the person that was able to articulate that they were happy that their spouse was no longer here because it must have been horrendous. It must have been a horrible situation. It is very difficult for people in that situation to grieve because it doesn’t look like what society would say grief is supposed to look like.
We’re supposed to not speak ill of the dead. We’re supposed to pretend that everything was perfect and it was wonderful. The truth is the reality that they live and they get to grieve and be unburdened. They get to no longer have to live this facade or deal with that pain. They get to speak how they feel. At the same time, they may deal with the grief of unfulfilled expectations that in the relationship never got better. They were never able to have what they hoped for because no one, when they take their vows and saying, “Till death to us part and I’ll cherish you and I’ll do all these things,” is hoping for it to be miserable. No one wants that.
Sometimes, we get dealt that in the only release, they didn’t have to go through a divorce, they didn’t have to go through this messy struggle with the children and all the other things. The passing, the death of a loved one could have been by natural causes and the only thing that set them free. For people that are reading this conversation, we see you. We see your pain and we understand it is hard and your grief matters and it’s okay.
That’s such a good perspective. Honestly, I feel like I need to go and make another video and just say that they are seen and heard because it was more triggering for me. That was me being selfish when I saw that post.
No, child. You’re six months into your grief. It is all about you and it’s okay. This is your journey. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sitting in a different perspective. I’m sitting in a perspective where I’m coaching people who are grieving, where I’m talking to hundreds of people and connecting. That is a perspective eight years into a very difficult journey in supporting a community. How could you have that perspective? Don’t give yourself a hard time. You can make the video, but I’m just saying don’t give yourself grief about that because it’s not something you’ve experienced to know.
I just think it brought to light how I said in the beginning, I didn’t see anyone else who looked like me. I can imagine that those women probably can’t see anyone who looks like them because they’re finding people like me who are crying on the internet because I’m sad. If you’re out there and you’re reading this, share with us. Let us support you.
I do want to say there was a spicy dancing video. I was like, “Okay.” This is all Tina. I was like, “Look at them knees. It look like she got down there.” I was rubbing my knee.
One of our favorite things to do is dance. I actually have a picture hanging on my wall that says this kitchen was made for dancing. I have not danced in my kitchen until I made that video.
How did that feel?
Freeing. I felt his presence. I don’t know what it was that morning, but I felt his presence that morning and I hit record and I posted it.
Dating Stage And Getting Married
We go from dating to how did we get to being married. How did that work, engagement or any of those things?
My time with him wasn’t long enough. This was the beginning of 2020. Basically, we had a ten-year relationship that year because it was 2020. He has 3 girls and I have 3 kids. We quite literally became the Brady Bunch what felt like overnight. I guess like maybe 3 months into it, almost 4 months into it is when the world shut down. I told you that I worked for myself. I’m a nail artist and so I had to close. I wasn’t working.
Hold on. The nail art, do you sell nails? Are people making these nails that they sell or do they come to you in person? How does that work?
In person, but I have tiny hand-painted like the Grinch and things like that. I wasn’t working and all of our kids were home. He has his girls 50/50. He still has to work.
You guys moved in together? You’re cohabitating?
We’re not cohabitating at this point. However, his girls are with him 50/50 and he has to work because he’s essential. I’m not essential because I just do nails. He’s essential. He’s at work. Now we’ve quickly fallen in love and I’m like, “Bring them over. I guess we’re going to have homeschool.” The kids are home and they’re with me and our kids, 18 now, 17, 15, 12, almost 11 and 8. They were sandwiched like this.
If you had not known that our children were not from us together, you would not have known because they were truly siblings. They laugh like siblings, annoyed each other like siblings and were asking for one another if they weren’t there that day. We had a fun time with them. That was 2020. We got through that whole year. The next year in 2021, he proposed, April 20th, 2021 and we eloped on my birthday in 2021. We just went to the courthouse and got married. That was the best gift. I’m a Leo and I like my birthday and then after we got married, I’m like, “I have to share my birthday.”
We got married the day after my birthday.
You did? Okay. I’m like, “We have to share my birthday every year.” We changed our celebration date to November 11th. That’s what we did. Anyway, now that I think about it, I’m like, “That literally is my birthday gift every year.” Every year now. That little light bulb just went out. That’s that gift that keeps on giving. That was our anniversary.
We have eloped in Florida. We went to Orlando, Florida. We eloped on the Orange County courthouse. We had on matching shorts and matching top.
That’s so funny. We got married and we went and got tattoos. We went together to pick up my wedding band.
Slow down. Let’s see that. Very pretty.
I don’t wear my engagement ring anymore, but that’s my band. That’s why I wear it on my right hand now.
You’re able to remember all those details and think of that. Thank you for sharing that. You said earlier life continues. Are you in a place that you’ve thought about what life looks like as you continue?
I’ve just started to figure that out and I shouldn’t even say figure it out, but think about it. I don’t know what my future holds. I think that is part of the scariness now, just going from, if I’m being real, having benefits and two incomes and no longer having that and living in a house now. My son’s about to go off to college. Do I need to stay in this house? Should I stay in this house?
There’s just so many unknowns. I honestly probably started working too soon after he passed. I think that was just a way to fill time. Also, people were showing up at my house, a lot of my clients, because my clients have become my friends. They were showing up at the house to support me and while they were here I’m like, “I might as well just do your nails too if you’re already going to be here.” That quickly ended up putting me back into work.
December, at that point, I felt like the world was crumbling down and I decided to take some time off. I started to ease back into work a little bit. Through all of this, I fulfilled a commitment that I did not want to do. I was one class short of getting my Associate’s degree. He and I talked about it. I was probably having a midlife crisis then. In July 2024, he and I talked about it and I said, “I’m going to contact the school,” because I was like, “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” I said, “I’m really close to finishing my degree. I’m going to see if those credits have expired or what’s happened.” We had a whole conversation about it.
I talked with the counselor and I just needed to take a chemistry class. Of all classes, I need to retake the chemistry class because I got an F the first time. I totally forgot about it until the chemistry lab kit, because you had to do labs and record them, showed up at my house in, I think, it was September 2024. I opened the box like, “What the heck is this?” It dawned on me that I had committed to taking this class and it was a commitment that it was something that he and I talked about together. I took that class and I got an A. I got my degree.
Congratulations.
Thank you. I do have a background in corporate so I don’t know what’s coming next. All that to say, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s next for me and I’m just trying to be still in here.
Facing Financial Pressure In Widowhood
Thank you. I want to talk about something that people really scoot around and you mentioned it briefly and it is a heavy part of being a widow. They died and we still have a two-person income life. They could have been the breadwinner. People gone back to their life, but there’s some financial pressure.
Huge. My husband had life insurance through his job. I was not on that.
When we have blended families, it is important to update our information.
Yeah. Say it louder, Tina.
When we have blended families, update your information. My current husband was married before. We’ve had that conversation because we just forget things in the back of our mind. To the point, Mark passed March 11th, 2017. I remarried February 2022. I was updating my health insurance and they said, “Ma’am, your husband’s already on here.” I was like, “This is weird.” I never took Mark off of the health insurance. I had been paying for him that whole time. I had a list of different things I thought I did, but I never took them off of that. When our life shifts, we have to update very critical information because it is important.
It is. I remember my first doctor’s appointment, going in and having to update my emergency contact information. It’s so triggering. I was like, “Who the hell do I select?” I don’t have any local family. They can call my mom in Ohio, but what’s she going to do? That was rough. Also updating my driver’s license. God forbid I were to get in a car accident. Right now, they’re going to come, they’re going to call him and the phone number is disconnected.
Updating your information is so important. Please, if you are married, have the talk. Have those hard conversations. Make sure that you’re covered because we are not in a great place, but I feel like I I’ll get through it just like I’ve gotten through so many things in my life. We’ll figure it out. I do wish that is one thing that I have been saying with a megaphone to my friends and family. Make sure that you have your stuff in order because you just never know.
Absolutely true. Mark and I had that tough conversation and those decisions were life-altering to have had those discussions. It may be costly and people go, “I don’t want to spend money for that.” If you know anything else in life, you’re going to leave this world. You don’t know the time or day, but 50/50 chance that if you’re a couple, you’re going to have to survive without the other, unless it’s something that happens in duality. It’s good adulting.
It’s responsible.
Managing Your Grief And Other People’s Grief
As far as being responsible and having young children, young, how do you manage their grief and your grief?
It’s one of those things where in the airplane, they say you put on your mask first. If I’m not okay, I can’t support them. In the beginning, I made sure that they were in therapy and they were getting everything that they needed. When they would go to school, I was laying in the bed all day long. Once I did the EMDR and started with working with a grief coach and coming out of that, I realized that it is one of those put on your mask first because if you are not okay, your kids are watching you. I realized too that when I was in that really sad space and I’m still sad, but when I was in the early stages, they almost hid it from me because mommy was already sad.
My younger two, I think the shock has worn off for them a little bit more. I don’t know if it’s the shock has worn off or maybe they just see that I can handle it more, but they have been talking more about their feelings and even with their therapists have been opening up. In the beginning, I remember my youngest, the therapist saying, “He’s resilient. He’s fine.” He’s not fine.
I don’t know if it was the busyness of the holidays and the busyness of everything that came right after Tim’s passing, or if it is that things have calmed down now and now that it’s been almost six months, reality has set in. Once I started to take better care of myself, I was able to take better care of them and ask questions that I wasn’t ready for previously. That’s been my experience with it.
I also realized that as the mom, as the wife, as the widow, I needed a lot of time. Society, and even me in the beginning, expected my kids to just go back to school. They couldn’t take this extended time off. I started having conversations with the counselors at the school, with people at the school, with their teachers and saying, “They may be late, they may leave early, they may text me, they may need to go to the office. They need the same grace that we give ourselves.”
Yes, kids are resilient, but sometimes, they can be suffering in silence. In fact, my daughter struggled quite a bit in December 2024, which was when I made that decision to take some time off because I realized that she needed more support than she had been given. That meant for her, no homework. All of her teachers agreed that she had no homework. They went off of the testing scores because it was too much pressure when she came home.
How Law Enforcement Can Support Grieving People
That is amazing. The analogy of putting on the mask and realizing children are people and they are suffering too, awesome parenting. Yolanda. I’ve asked a lot of questions and I know neither of us knew what we were really going to talk about until we started this. Is there something you wanted to cover that we didn’t talk about that comes to mind for you?
I want to talk about law enforcement. That’s something that would help me with a group, having someone in the law enforcement widow world. There is what I thought would be a huge community and the way my husband passed, he was not honored in the way that others would have been. I do think there needs to be more support in that area.
Even down to his funeral service there. There’s no flyover, and there’s no TAPS. You don’t get the same service. It’s almost like not getting an honorable discharge, if you will. That is something that I wish there were more resources for. I know there was a news conference or something where they were coming up with something new for first responders. I remember my stepdad sending me a screenshot of a picture of the news thing. They live in Ohio, so this was national news.
All they did was introduce a phone number. We already have 988. There are other phone numbers out there. If they don’t have the support inside their agency, they’re not going to call that damn phone number. It’s 988, 911, 123, 456. No one’s calling that phone number. Having this additional resource is not helpful if the agency themselves doesn’t work with them in the right capacity.
It’s unfortunate that when you are helping so many people and exposed to so many things, that there are not more resources and more support. I think when someone shows that they are struggling, it is unfortunately relayed or received as a sign of weakness. That is not the case in any other field. If you cannot be mentally strong or mentally healthy, or if you are just struggling for a moment, they should have some support. I don’t even know. I feel like this may not even make sense. It might need to be cut, but there’s lacking there.
No, you’re living it. I would not cut it. This is your lived experience and what you’re finding out that that arm of support was not extended to you because of the way in which your husband died, but even more so you’re needing it because of the way he died. There was an exhibit of there was some pressure. There was something going on that caused this to happen.
Being retired military, when we’re in these fields where strength in valor is the strong pillar and we feel weak in that, we often don’t have a place to feel like we can turn to and be vulnerable when I don’t feel this strength or I don’t feel this rigor, that I’m not meeting up to what these standards are because life is lifeing on me. Oftentimes, people feel like, “My only way out is to not be here because I can’t measure up.” That is, unfortunately, a very common societal process that we need to deal with to be better, that when they’re strong, don’t feel strong, that they can still feel safe and it’s okay.
Also, my husband had the biggest, brightest smile. If you ever talk to or hear any stories about him, it’s always about how happy he was, how he was always smiling, how he was just joyful and bubbly. It’s so true. Also, a reminder to check on your strong friends. Check in on them because sometimes people are going through a battle that you know nothing about. Honestly, I still am just in shock that we are here having this conversation. Even as his wife, there were things that we were facing that he and I, but we were facing it together that he was dealing with and it was a normal morning. I never imagined that that day would turn into what is now my life.
Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words
Yolanda, I am so grateful for you being willing to have this conversation and just like everything else you’re doing to share your journey, to help you, but also to help other people to know that there’s someone that looks like them, that looks like you and they’re not alone.
Thank you for having me. I’m so glad we connected. I’m just so grateful for you and everyone that I’ve met. It’s a been a big part of my healing journey.
You are welcome. I have asked you a lot of questions. Any questions of me that come to mind?
Yeah. If you had one piece of advice for me, what would it be?
Keep doing what you’re doing.
I love that.
You are being intentional that this sucks like high garbage but that doesn’t mean you’re running from it. When you said, “I try different modalities,” did you know the word modality before Tim died?
I did. I did therapy before and that’s in our family.
Okay, good. Usually, people are like, “I don’t know what I can do.” You are saying, “I’m trying to find what I can do.” You are doing the work. This is hard. This is the hardest experience in my entire life. Even though we have community, there is a big part of this that we have to do as an individual. I hear you leveraging everything possible. EMDR, you’re hearing different people’s journeys and stories. You’re putting the mask on and off of your children. Keep doing what you’re doing and you will look back and go, “I just crawled through hot lava butt naked and made it out alive.”
I want to share something with you as a message to those who are also early on. When I started my grief coaching, there was a document I filled out that asked me to rate different emotions on a scale of 1 to 10. I filled this out initially back in October 2024 and we did a follow-up probably for me to redo that same thing. I do not remember answering those questions. On that scale of 1 to 10, I was at like a 1 or a 2, maybe a 3. Now that scale has gone from 3 to 7 to 9 to 10, but also writing out why do I feel that way.
One of them was about hope, whether or not I was hopeful. I think my hope was at a two. I literally said, “I don’t feel hopeful because I cannot get out of bed.” Documenting that journey is so important because some days, like the days where I feel like I’m regressing, I go back and I look at that. I’m like, “I’m not there yet, though.” I’ve made progress. To watch that progress is something that, honestly, makes me proud and it makes me want to keep going.
Yolanda, I’m going to allow you to close out this conversation with our readers. Before you do that, I just want to say thank you for being here. For those that have joined this conversation, I am sorry for your loved one that is no longer here that drove you here, but I’m glad that you found us. Email me at WidowhoodRealTalk@Gmail.com. We have a community of people that will be on this journey with you.
We have a confidential grief support group on Facebook. We have a grief Discord and we have tons of events when you go to our website at Widowhood-RealTalkWithTina.org. We are a nonprofit. If you’re looking to support or sponsor and connect with over 4 million views across 106 countries, please contact me. There’s a way that you can be supportive. Yolanda, please close out this conversation with your final comments.
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so grateful that we’ve connected and I want anyone reading this to know that their, although their spouse may no longer be here, there’s still so much life left to live. If I had one piece of advice for anyone reading, it would be to live the life they no longer get to.
Excellent. Thank you.
Important Links
- Yolanda White on TikTok
- Widowhood Real Talk with Tina Email
- Widowhood Real Talk with Tina on Facebook
