Gold Star spouse Deanna Phillips became a widow on March 5, 2010, when her beloved husband, Michael Phillips, a US Air Force veteran, lost his battle with service-connected cancer. The grief that followed was nearly paralyzing. She feared she’d always be alone. 

“When you lose a spouse, you have this heavy weight on you,” she says. “The whole world is erupting. You carry stuff and you keep carrying it and carrying it, and soon you don’t even realize that you’re carrying it.”

Deanna learned about TMF in 2023, and it was the start of her journey to freedom. “I’d been involved in a lot of widow organizations,” she says, “but TMF is doing something other organizations don’t. Bringing together veterans and families of the fallen is so vital, because it gives you an understanding that you didn’t have before. It helps me understand my own story more.”

When she began TMF’s Spartan Leadership Program (SLP)—a 7-month, life-changing experience designed to empower veterans and families of fallen military heroes to connect passion with purpose—Deanna felt reconnected to her husband. 

“Watching the veterans bond together and talk about their battle scars—it gave me a piece of Mike back,” she says. “ I didn’t stay on a military base [after he died]. So not only did I lose him, I lost my military family. Being around the veterans at SLP, listening to the acronyms, brought joy back to me and literally brought pieces of Mike back to me.”

SLP made such an impact on Deanna that she is now one of TMF’s most active Spartan leaders. She leads the North Dallas chapter in all of its events and service projects, and is a Mentor with Character Does Matter.

She’s also most certainly not alone. “With most organizations, you come in for a weekend or a week, and then people go off and we become friends on Facebook but the support isn’t really there. But the bonds we develop through TMF are family bonds that —I promise you—you can ask me in five years and they’ll be just as strong.”

Marking the 16th anniversary of Mike’s death, Deanna believes if her husband were still here, he’d be serving right alongside her. “He’d probably be mentoring through Character Does Matter,” she says. “He loved students and teaching. So when I serve through TMF, it makes me feel close to him. I think he would hate it being done in his honor, because at the end of the day he believes this is how everyone should be, but I have no doubt he's very honored that I am sharing the traits he loves the most with the next generation in his name.”

Deanna is one of thousands of surviving spouses who’ve found a path through their grief to a life of purpose with TMF. To learn more about the Spartan Leadership Program, TMF Chapters or to find out how to honor the memory of fallen heroes through service, visit our Get Involved page.