Shay Martin Marks First Thanksgiving as a Mom, Months After Her Husband Tanner’s Death

This Thanksgiving marks Shay Martin’s first as a mother — just months after the death of her husband Tanner in July.

On her Instagram feed, she posted a video compilation featuring some of her favorite memories with Tanner, and on Stories she shared several posts about navigating grief during the holiday season.

“5 years since you were diagnosed. 5 months since you became our angel,” she captioned the post. “It’s hard when I feel like I’m forgetting your smile, your face, your laugh. I’m so grateful you tolerated every video and photo so we could cherish you for eternity.”

“I love you. I miss you,” she added. “And you’re mean♥️”

In July, Tanner announced his own death in a pre-recorded video message shared online, after a five-year cancer journey he documented on social media. The news came just over a month after he and Shay welcomed their first child, daughter AmyLou.

Speaking in October about their decision to get pregnant amid Tanner’s cancer treatments, Shay told Matt and Abby Howard on The Unplanned Podcast that both she and Tanner always wanted to be parents.

“He really, really wanted to be a dad,” said Shay of her late husband on the Oct. 1 episode. “And I had always wanted to have a family. So, at that point, we were like, ‘Alright, let’s have a kid.’ ”

Doctors advised Tanner to bank his sperm before undergoing his first cancer treatments in 2020 in case they caused him to become infertile, and though he and Shay had plans to do an egg retrieval and embryo transfer in September 2023, they held off when Tanner got sepsis because they did not want to have a newborn while Tanner was in hospice care.

In July 2024 — while Tanner’s treatments appeared to be working — they tried for a baby. “We were already pregnant,” Shay said on The Unplanned Podcast. “And then Tanner’s treatment stopped working.”

AmyLou was born in May, and Tanner died 41 days later.

Since her husband’s death, Shay has opened up to her over 592,000 Instagram followers about her grieving process and life as a widow. 

Last month, during her first Halloween since Tanner died, she filmed a “get ready with me” video in which she called this stage of her life her “transformation widow era.”

“Sometimes people expect you to stay the same and not change at all, but when you lose your best friend in the whole world, your partner, your spouse, your lover, how can you stay the same and not change?” said the content creator.

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“When I’m moving forward, it’s not a reset,” she continued. “When I am moving into this next chapter, I’m never leaving behind my story, or Tanner, or my love for him. That’s gonna continue out through my whole life.”

Earlier in November, Shay did the viral candy salad trend with several other widows, where they shared anecdotes about their late husbands before dumping their chosen candy into a bowl.

“My name is Shay. My husband Tanner died four months ago, and I had a 6-week-old baby, and unknowingly, Tanner had set up a GoFundMe, and people said, ‘I don’t know why you think you deserve that,’ ” she acknowledged in the video.

“Having people that GET IT is so healing,” Shay wrote in the caption. “We cry together and laugh together. We support each other and cheer one another on!”