“You do not have to be fearless to move forward. You just have to decide that moving forward matters more than standing still.”
The Stranger at the Airport
In the spring of 2004, Fabersha was exactly where she wanted to be. A graduate student in Mississippi, immersed in African American women’s studies, working toward her doctorate, spending her days reading and writing and visiting historically significant sites across the South. Her path was clear. Her future was bright.
Then came Spring Break.
While waiting for her flight at Jacksonville International Airport, she bumped into a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant named Bryan A. Lewis. She remembers him as a gentleman with a great sense of humor that instantly won her over. They exchanged phone numbers. They went their separate ways. And then they talked, for hours, on the phone, night after night, until what started as a chance encounter became something neither of them had planned for.
One year later, he proposed. In August 2005, they married. Bryan planned to complete his next tour in Iraq, then transition into law enforcement stateside. They were going to start a family. Their future, by every measure, was unfolding exactly as it should.
March 13, 2006
In previous years, March had held some of Fabersha’s most treasured memories. It was the month she had met Bryan. The month he had proposed. But in 2006, March became something else entirely.
They had spoken that morning over instant messenger. And then, the news arrived. Staff Sgt. Bryan A. Lewis had been killed by a roadside bomb near Rustamiyah, Iraq, while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was thirty-two years old. They had been married less than a year.
It was not until Bryan’s body was returned to American soil and laid to rest in his hometown of Bunkie, Louisiana, that the unbearable weight of her loss truly began to set in.
The woman who had spent years building toward a doctorate, who had filled her days with books and research and purpose, found herself unable to move forward.
Fabersha Did Not Rush Her Healing. She Honored It.
Through the reaffirmation of her faith in God, she was able to walk through her loss and slowly, steadily, rediscover her purpose. She established a scholarship through her church in memory of Bryan. She founded an educational consulting firm focused on helping institutions of higher education build learning environments that truly welcome and support marginalized students.
She also found her way into a role that fit her like nothing else had. At Athens Technical College, working alongside students who faced their own formidable barriers to education, something shifted. She realized she wanted to be in administration, not because it was easier, but because it gave her a greater voice to make the change she had always wanted to make.
The pain had not disappeared. But it had found a direction.
The Next Chapter Was Waiting for Her to Begin It.
In 2021, fifteen years after Bryan’s passing, something felt different. As the anniversary approached, Fabersha made a decision. She told herself: *”Now is the time. Now is my time.”*
She applied to the doctoral program in Higher Education Administration at the University of Southern Mississippi. She applied to the Pat Tillman Foundation. And she waited, quietly doubting herself, quietly hoping.
“I’ve had my eyes on the Tillman Scholars Program and finally earning my doctorate for a few years. But I struggled to believe in myself. Looking at the long list of brilliant and accomplished scholars caused me to doubt if I was worthy.”
Everything changed, she said, when she realized it was never a competition. *”Once I got out of my own way, everything began to fall into place. And I believe Bryan would be so excited to see where my path is leading.”*
She became the first, and only, Tillman Scholar to represent the University of Southern Mississippi, and one of very few military spouses to have participated in the program to date.
What began as a quiet decision to try again soon opened doors she hadn’t imagined.
Super Bowl Sunday, With Her Son By Her Side
In January 2023, Fabersha received a call she believed was from an investor.
It was actually J.J. Watt.
She had been selected from thousands of Tillman Scholars as one of four Honorary Coin Toss Captains for Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona. When asked who she wanted by her side, her answer was immediate, **her thirteen-year-old son, Kaden.**
Together, they stood on the 50-yard line on one of the biggest stages in the world. Bryan Lewis was not there in person, but his presence, and everything he stood for, remained a part of that moment.
The Work She Was Always Meant to Do
Today, Fabersha serves as Executive Director of Adult Education and the Walton County Campus at Athens Technical College, overseeing all high school equivalency instruction and GED testing for an eleven-county service area, and the full operations of the college’s Monroe campus. Waltontribune
Every student she serves, every person who walks through those doors carrying their own uncertainty, their own grief, their own quiet hope, receives the full weight of everything she has learned and everything she has survived.
She is not just an educator. She is proof of what becomes possible when purpose is forged from pain.
Why Fabersha’s Story Stays With You
There is a particular kind of strength that does not announce itself. It shows up quietly, in the decision to keep going when every reason to stop feels overwhelming, in the choice to turn the hardest chapter of your life into the foundation for something that helps others.
Fabersha has done exactly that. With faith, determination, and an unwavering commitment to the people around her, she built a life and a career that continues to lift others long after the hardest moments have passed.
