Facing It All: A Winding Road Toward Healing
Authors: April Bowden , Kristi Stolzenberg
“I’m an open book,” Gold Star Spouse April Bowden shares during our introductory phone call. “Truth opens the doors to healing.” April speaks about her life, her loss, and her purpose with a realness, a rawness that both takes you by surprise and is incredibly relatable once her contagious sense of self-awareness forces us to take a look at ourselves and confront the things we carry along with our grief.
Rooted Pain
April openly admits she was a “hurt human” long before her husband, U.S. Army SSG Josh Bowden, died in combat on August 31, 2013. “I have always struggled with mental health,” she shared in a February interview with Bold Journey. “I come from a long line of addiction [and] sexual abuse.” April describes where she came from as a “broken home” with a father who struggled with addiction and popped in and out of her life until she was 11 and a mother who did the best she could with the situation she was handed.
In April’s words, “Outside of being medicated at a young age for ADHD, I never really got help. My issues were ignored. I was never really right.” She “coped” by numbing her young nervous system, including exposure to substance use as early as 11 and self-harm. The world moved fiercely forward, but, most days, April felt like she was treading water.
In the Army
In what April calls a “window of peace” in her life, she met a soldier in Huntsville, Alabama. He was steady, preppy, and a contrast to April in many ways, but they both loved heavy metal, and that was the only seed they needed to grow their relationship. Even after transferring to Eglin Air Force Base to continue his training, Josh visited April every weekend.
They married in June of 2007, when April was 19 and Josh was 20, and quickly followed the Army’s orders to Alaska. “We were both excited about getting away together,” April told the Redstone Rocket in a 2014 article. “We were close in Alabama…but we got closer in Alaska. The only people we had were each other, so it made us better together.”
Not long after arriving in Alaska, April found out she was pregnant, and their son was born in June 2008 — ahead of Josh’s first deployment to Afghanistan. April fondly recalls the support system she found in Alaska during that deployment. Living on post, she spent much of her time with her fellow Army wives.
When Josh returned from war, he brought depression and PTSD with him. At that time, the only thing that helped him was being held, so she cared for him and their baby at the same time. It wasn’t long after his return that April’s dormant trust and self-image issues began to reemerge, and Josh started shutting her out.
They made the difficult decision to separate in 2011, but she and Josh never gave up on each other. They remained best friends, talked often, saw each other whenever possible, and took turns refusing to sign the divorce papers — one of them always finding a reason not to go through with it.
Losing the Army, Then Josh
Even before Josh’s death, April began losing pieces of her life with him. Leaving the supportive Army network when they separated and returning to civilian life was extremely difficult. She was still his wife, but their lives moved forward in different directions.
When Josh, at 28 years old and on his second deployment, was killed in a small-arms fire while on patrol in Ghazni, Afghanistan, in 2013, April completely and abruptly lost the man she’d clung to for so many years. “Josh was my normalcy,” she admits, “after he died, I didn’t know how to function.” His sudden and traumatic death awakened old, destructive coping strategies that she never faced, and she found herself in a yearslong spiral toward rock bottom.
As she told Bold Journey, despite completely and totally losing Josh the minute he died, “It took God a really long time to take Josh out of my identity…I was really sick. It was like I died with him.” She became obsessed with ghosts and anything bigger than herself that could make Josh’s death and her grief make sense, but she confesses, “The substances I was using cut me off from the answers I sought.” At her lowest point in 2020, April admits she had “nowhere to look other than in the mirror. In that mirror, there was a monster.”
Willing to Heal
Like most grieving people, April didn’t face her grief in a vacuum. She faced it already fatigued from the weight of past traumas, grudges, fears, lies, addictions, insecurities, and regrets she’d carried for so many years. To find healing from her grief, she had to face it all with brutal honesty.
Working on one aspect of her life at a time, she slowly pulled herself up. It was — and continues to be — an evolving, intentional process that began when she let faith in and turned away from numbing her pain with substances. “Today, I’m no longer that abused little girl, but she still lives within me, and I love her every day,” April shared with Bold Journey. “I try to build her a new house with love, laughter and free will, adventure, and safety — something she never had.” Ultimately, she hopes her story will help others navigate their own grief and trauma.
We all carry heavy things along with our grief that can complicate our journeys toward healing. Numbing or ignoring the pain will always keep inner peace or deep meaning just out of reach. April’s story reminds us that life won’t be perfect — that we aren’t perfect. We’ll face storms, but we don’t have to fear them if our foundations and faith are strong and we draw strength from our pasts as we take one willing step after another into our futures.
Online Workshops
The TAPS Institute for Hope and Healing® connects you with grief and mental health experts through a robust collection of free online workshops that help you understand your grief and choose healthy coping strategies. View upcoming courses or choose a webinar from our archives to get started.
April Bowden is the surviving spouse of U.S. Army SSG Joshua Bowden.
Kristi Stolzenberg is TAPS Magazine and Special Projects Editor.
Photos: April Bowden