Emily Parker spoke with Brenda Hale about the day she found out her husband had died in Afghanistan, how she survived the shock and grief, and her life in politics since then.

Emily: And what about your faith? Neither of you had a faith when you were growing up, but God came into your life once you'd got married. What happened?

Brenda: Growing up in Northern Ireland everyone went to church. So I had a knowledge of the Bible stories, of Judaism and of Christianity. Mark's background was that he was Jewish, but they were not practising Jews. He didn't even know that Jesus was a Jew. He had no idea about Christ at all.

For me, my conversion happened slowly as I started to realise I needed Jesus in my life. For Mark, it was based on knowledge; he read every piece of literature he could get his hands on. He read about Islam; he read about Christianity; Judaism; and he went into the New Age, he researched that. He was really looking for something. His conversion was based on theory, a sort of theoretical conversion. He decided that the only book that spoke to him, the only book that he could fully believe, where God was carrying out His promises and spoke about the past, today and what could happen in the future, was the Bible. We actually became Christians round about the same time, but two very different paths.

I was petrified to begin with. I didn't want Mark to become a Christian. I was worried that he was going to change and start wearing sandals and knee socks and grow a beard when he was on leave from the army. I was worried that this roughty, toughty, professional soldier was going to turn into some big 'drip' and, of course he didn't. God took Mark's physical strength, his mental ability and used that as a very powerful witness within the regiment.

Emily: Tell me about the day that Mark died in Afghanistan.

Brenda: The 13th August 2009. I woke up, as any other morning, four months in to a deadly Afghan tour. I went to check my emails and there was no email from Mark. Mark was very lucky that he was able to email every day. So if there wasn't an email I knew either he's very busy at work, or something has happened.

Immediately I turned on the television to see if Ceefax had pulled anything up on the news about any incidents in Afghanistan, and there was no mention of anything happening there. That was when my anxiety began to set in, because I knew then that there had been an incident. What the MOD started to do was, if there was an incident in Afghanistan, they'd close down all lines of communication, so the family could be informed in the formal and correct process, and not hear by word of mouth.

I got my two girls up; my girls' at this stage were seven and 16. I got my youngest one to summer school and my eldest one was doing work experience at a local newspaper. I got my girls off to where they needed to be, did my shopping, but the whole time I was becoming more and more anxious, hoping and praying that when I got home my email would be there from Mark.

I got in through the front door and dumped my shopping in the kitchen, went to open my laptop to check on my emails and there was no email. I immediately turned on the television again, all the time praying, "Oh God, please let Mark be okay." I looked at Ceefax and there was still nothing up on Ceefax, and so I sent an email to Mark and just said that I was really worried, and I hoped that he was okay and could he email me as soon as the communication lines were opened, and that I loved him very, very much.

I'd literally just sent that email when my front door knocked, and my heart dropped like a stone. I began to shake, because I knew even before I went to the front of my house to answer the door, I knew what that knock was all about.

Brenda and Mark Hale

When I opened the door there was a gentleman and a woman standing there and they said, "Are you the wife of Captain Mark James Hale?" They showed me very discretely their army ID and I just shut my front door in their faces, because I knew they weren't coming to tell me that he was hurt. I knew they were coming to tell me that he was dead.

I realised, also, this is Northern Ireland; you cannot keep army personnel on your doorstep, so I opened the door and somehow, I have no memory of this, but somehow they managed to get me into my sitting room, on the sofa, and delivered the words, "Captain Mark James Hale was killed today and died at 09:10 in Camp Bastion."

I just started to reel. I didn't cry. I didn't scream, but I started to shake uncontrollably and my teeth began to chatter, and they chattered for the next 18 months with shock.

Emily: How do you walk through grief like that, when you know you are never going to see the love of your life again?