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Thank You, Stephen Levine

Posted on January 19, 2016 - by Cheryl Espinosa-Jones

It was intermission at In The Name of Love, a yearly concert in honor and memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Each year, Living Jazz gathers incredible musicians to offer musical tribute and this year, they were all singing Nina Simone. My choir, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir always sings and the night has particular meaning to me because my father spent the most vital years of his career as a civil rights worker. He was on the bridge in Selma, he registered voters and, to his great honor, he was near MLK, behind him on the steps, when […]

Seven Steps to Decuttering Your Grief: The Spark Joy Approach

Posted on January 19, 2016 - by Gloria Horsley

Okay! I did it. I cleaned out my closet this morning. I got rid of all the things that didn’t fully bring me joy. This Christmas my husband gave me the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. It is not a big book, but it is a significant book in that is challenges us to free ourselves of unneeded stuff. Following the author’s instructions I went to my closet took out all my cloths and laid them on my bed. I then proceeded to pick up each item and ask, “Does this spark joy?” If the […]

A Letter to Myself (as a New Widow)

Posted on January 9, 2016 - by Michelle Jarvie

I’ve always been a planner. When I was 8, I had Christmas presents wrapped and cards made in July. When I was 14, I researched all of my college options. When I was 19 and graduated college, I knew that 26 was going to be the best year of my life. After all, at 26, you’re deep into a career, are likely married, own your own home, and are financially stable and wise enough to provide for kids. When the plan sped up and I found and married my best friend at 22 years old, we decided to live in […]

Three Years After Son’s Death, the Emptiness is Sacred

Posted on January 8, 2016 - by Elizabeth Brady

“It is your season, Elizabeth,” our priest greeted me, more than eight months pregnant and my body filled to bursting with our son, John, during Advent 2003. “It is,” I laughed. “I can’t wait to hold him!” Our daughter, Izzy, six at the time, was dubious about a little brother joining her domain in January. We began reading the first chapter of Luke out loud feeling a kinship with Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, enjoying the company of her cousin Mary while they were both expecting their sons. And, like their sons, our John, nicknamed “Mack,” came to us […]

Re-Imagining Grief: When Family and Culture Offer No Help

Posted on January 7, 2016 - by Mark Liebenow

We are taught how to grieve by the legacy carried in our families, or more accurately, we are taught how to cover death up. This presented a problem when my wife Evelyn died. I was told that one side of my family was pushed out of Scotland because of the Clearances, settled in Ireland for a time, and then came to America. I was told that the other side fled Germany in the late 1800s when Bismarck was conscripting males for another of his wars, began life in a new country, and created a farm on a prairie in Wisconsin. […]

You Did The Best You Could

Posted on January 5, 2016 - by Nina Impala

There is something very important I want to share with you, so listen deep. As a bereavement counselor I speak with numerous people on a daily basis about loss. The number one thing I feel from people is guilt. The words pour out of them, “If I hadn’t take them to the hospital…” or “What if I hadn’t put him in a nursing home?” “I should have called her more.” Let me tell you something: In those moments when you made the decisions to do or say what you did, you were reacting from that moment and the love in […]

Hope and Clarity in the Middle of Nowhere

Posted on January 5, 2016 - by David Roberts

Lately, I have begun to revisit previous articles and blogs that I have authored. Perhaps as I grow older, I value nostalgia more, or perhaps it is the value I place on the past as a teacher. Regardless, I always discover new insights when I revisit previous writings. The majority of the content of the article that follows was originally published by Hello Grief in November of 2013. I have eliminated or changed some words here because the terminology I used then to describe my path doesn’t apply to me in this moment. I believe that as we evolve after loss, how we conceptualize […]

Hope With Red Feathers

Posted on January 1, 2016 - by Sue Trace Lawrence

“Hope is the thing with feathers.” This quote from Emily Dickinson never made a lot of sense to me; my primary association with it resulted from Woody Allen’s poking fun in one of his 1970’s books. Recently, an odd experience, maybe some would say a coincidence, caused me to see this pronouncement in a new light. In the six years since my 41-year-old brother died, I often found it difficult to feel a sense of hope. Dictionary.com defines hope as “the feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for the best.” A simplistic […]

Pregnancy Loss and Still Birth

Posted on December 31, 2015 - by Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley

The CEO of First Candle, Chris Blake, joins Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley on this episode of the Open to Hope show. This organization saves lives and provides support to parents facing pregnancy loss and still births. Dr. Heidi Horsley has had some miscarriages in her life, and relates closely to the non-profit’s work. Brooke Smith of Knot My Baby also joins the show, sharing her story about the death of her full-term baby. She used First Candle’s services, and it inspired her to begin her own organization. Kennedy Smith, Brooke’s daughter, is the inspiration for all her work. Blake […]

Make a New Year’s Resolution to Lean into Grief

Posted on December 31, 2015 - by Joni Norby

I wasn’t prepared for 2009, the first new year after our son Ben’s death in 2008. How could we make new memories without our boy? This revelation hit hard around 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve 2008 as the Times Square ball drop started and the countdown began. Time needed to stand still – everything needed to stop. Of course the ball did drop with “2009” flashing everywhere as people sang, and hugged, and kissed, to the background roar and beauty of exploding fireworks. I curled into the fetal position with my head buried in sofa cushions, closing my mind […]