In a viral TikTok that highlights love after loss, Brittanie Lynn Ritchie shares the touching moment her new girlfriend, Katie Martin, hangs a photo of Ritchie and her late fiancée, Rochelle “Roe” Hager, in their new home.
The gesture has sparked a conversation across social media on the journey of healing and reconnecting with love after the death of a loved one.
Ritchie and Hager’s love story blossomed on TikTok during the pandemic, with Hager making a move from Pennsylvania to Maine to live with Ritchie. Their relationship, which was tragically cut short following Hager’s death in 2021, has left an incredible mark on Ritchie’s life.
Rochelle Hager and Brittanie Lynn Ritchie.
Brittanie Lynn
“She paved the road for the way I deserve to be treated,” Ritchie tells PEOPLE exclusively. “She was so gentle with me, and she taught me what it’s like to be treated well.”
At the time, Ritchie and Hager were social media influencers, which made her grieving process particularly difficult. “It was a very public grieving process,” Hager explains. But, she adds, “our followers deserved to know and see the process.”
While the healing journey was tough, Ritchie eventually found love with her new partner, Martin, whom she also met via TikTok in 2022. The two had a long-distance relationship for two years before they moved into a home of their own in August 2024.
Martin’s understanding of Ritchie’s late fiancée has only solidified the couple’s love. “She’s always been very supportive,” Ritchie says of Martin. “She wants to know about Roe; it’s almost as if she wants to know her.”
The viral TikTok of Martin hanging Hager’s photo in the couple’s home was a spontaneous moment that Ritchie felt compelled to capture. “I thought, ‘This is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,’ ” Ritchie shares.
While many comments came from users unable to relate to Ritchie’s current situation, she reflects that she once had the same mindset before her loss.
“Until you really go through it, you never really understand,” she says as she reflects on a conversation she had with Hager two weeks before her death. “She was like, ‘if anything happens to me, I would want you to move on and be happy,’ ” Ritchie continues.
“At the time, I said, ‘Girl, not me. I would not move on.’ Then, after she passed, I was like, wow, this is what she meant. She didn’t want me to be miserable forever, but I hadn’t been through that yet, so I didn’t really understand it until I had.”
Though Ritchie continues to heal daily, she emphasizes the importance of open communication between herself and her partner, as well as Martin’s ability to understand her girlfriend as she navigates love after loss.
“Katie just gives me that space to openly grieve the loss of someone that was extremely important in my life,” she explains. “We are still capable of working on our future together through that.”
Ritchie advises those who have lost a partner to take it “one day at a time.” Her experience has resulted in a deepened appreciation for life’s moments. “I hope anyone who has lost a partner is able to find something like Katie is to me. Somebody that understands it and gives them a safe and open space to communicate and talk about their late partner,” she says.
