Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

Mother’s Day Memories

Posted on May 17, 2016 - by Carla J Vagnini

Let me just start by saying it was a wonderful Mother’s Day surprise to see that the Open to Hope Foundation wanted me to write articles for them! It made getting up at 4am today to catch my 5am bus all worth it. My Mother’s Day was not one of the best, and therefore I told my husband I officially claim a “do-over”. You see, my husband and I were serving wine at a winery in Northern Virginia. It was a beautiful day, after what seemed like weeks of rain, and the winery had a great Mother’s Day event planned. […]

Young Adults Coping with Grief

Posted on May 16, 2016 - by Beryl Kaminsky

Counselor in Houston, and author of Mending the Broken Heart: After Your Child Dies Beryl Kaminsky, shares with the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) how young adults can help heal themselves on a grief journey. She works with those dealing with loss and grief, and especially death and dying. Being in your late teens to early 30s and dealing with grief is juxtaposition. This is usually when you’re focusing on yourself, having fun, and starting a family. However, losing a loved one during this time turns everything upside down. This can cause great uncertainty, but grief can also […]

Learning to Allow in the Face of Tragic Loss

Posted on May 14, 2016 - by Gabrielle Doucet

Paralytic Loss. That was me at ground zero after losing my adult son Drew in the spring of 2011 to suicide. I was so unprepared for what followed, that my mind just sort of stopped, and everything I knew with certainty was simply washed right out of my brain. The reality is that suicide is horrific, unspeakable Loss at its heart. What I have discovered is this: loss is loss – there are no measuring sticks to tell you which loss is greater than another. Loss has no “tragedy meter”. It is unique to each person, and it cannot be […]

Eternity is Real and Death is a Myth

Posted on May 13, 2016 - by Sheri Perl

“It is very beautiful over there.” Thomas Edison, on his deathbed, describing a vision he was having. “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!” Steve Jobs, on his deathbed, last words uttered. Yes, losing a child is a terrible thing. Attending your own child’s funeral has to be the most devastating, surreal and painful event you could ever live through and yet, somehow we have, and some of us more than once! What’s worse is that we now get to go through the rest of our physical lives without them here to share the events and milestones of a lifetime, but, […]

National Alliance for Grieving Children Helps Kids with Grief

Posted on May 12, 2016 - by Pamela Gabbay

Executive Director of the Dougy Center for Grieving Children, Dr. Donna Schuurman, talks with the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) about resources for children facing a loss. She’s joined by Pamela Gabbay, part of the National Alliance for Grieving Children. The two work closely with children who have experienced loss through death. They provide national resources and connect those looking for information with those who need information. Gabbay serves on the board of the Alliance, and works at the Morning Star Center in Palm Desert, California. The National Alliance is a membership organization which can be accessed by […]

Spring—A Haunted Season

Posted on May 11, 2016 - by Greg Adams

We are all haunted by the dead, and that reality, like so many others, is both challenge and comfort. Autumn with its Halloween, falling leaves, frosty air and increasingly bare branches is usually thought of as the season of haunting, but we grieving people know that spring has ghosts of its own. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the end of the school year are especially fertile times for visits from our dead, be they grandparents, parents, children or others. It’s a crowded time of year. “Dead and gone” is the common phrase, but we know better. In many ways, it’s […]

A Daughter Remembers Her Father’s Creative Legacy

Posted on May 9, 2016 - by Katherine Relf-Canas

My father, Geoff Relf, a longtime San Diego advertising and communications figure passed away July 28, 2015, at 85, after battling cancer, surviving his wife, Connie by five years. The couple met at the University of Washington and moved to San Diego in 1956, then to La Jolla in 1959, where they raised four children: Terrie, Robin, Kirk, and Katherine. He was born in Tacoma, Washington, the son of Henry Clark Relf, an international lumber broker and De Lonto May Kirk, who met at the University of Washington. He was fond of sharing stories of his precocious childhood endeavors and […]

Illumination quote card by Laurel D. Rund

A Message for Mother’s Day: After Mother Has Died

Posted on May 8, 2016 - by Lauren Muscarella

Yesterday I received a text message saying, “I’m sorry I couldn’t call you back. I had a rough night.” I wasn’t keeping track and couldn’t readily remember what I’d called to say in the first place, so I asked if she was O.K. She responded telling me that a young friend had received a cancer diagnosis and the prognosis wasn’t good. She’d been up all night thinking about life and mortality. She closed her message with, “Life is short. I’m sure you learned that after your mom died.” People say things like that all the time, and it never bothers […]

Reflecting on Mother’s Day, Yesterday and Today

Posted on May 7, 2016 - by Lo Anne Mayer

When our daughter died, all hope seemed to be erased from my body, mind and spirit. Wherever I looked, whomever I spoke with, seemed to emphasize the despair I felt within and without. I truly believed that I was the ONLY person on the planet who had lost a child to suicide. Mother’s Day in 2005 was almost too much to bear. All I could think about was that I had lost my daughter forever. I didn’t realize in those days that, here in the US, almost 500,000 parents experienced the death of a child or young adult every year. […]

How I Survived my First Mother’s Day as a Grieving Parent

Posted on May 5, 2016 - by Joni Norby

Our 19-year-old son Ben was buried May 2, 2008 – eight days before Mother’s Day. Even though I was still in shock, I knew enough to stay away from church that Sunday. Our minister had always made a big deal out of the holiday, and every mother left the service with a rose. My husband Dave and our daughter Katie were also in shock so we three zombies wandered around a quiet house that first holiday after Ben’s death. We stayed away from everything and everyone – and that was just the right thing to do, for us. An important […]