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Inspiring Attitudes and Holiday Help

Posted on November 3, 2015 - by Marguerite OConnor

I have had the honor of working with people who had or have life limiting conditions. When I was prearranging a funeral for a client who had been given a serious diagnosis, he decided to get his affairs in order. Widowed, he called an old sweetheart and found that she was not in a relationship. He shared how special she was to him and invited her on a cruise, all expenses paid and no strings attached. He arranged for a friend to finish out the lease on his luxury automobile. He arranged the monetary inheritance for his family members. He […]

Joy Berger: Using Music to Compose Life Out of Loss

Posted on November 3, 2015 - by Heidi Horsley

The Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) features Joy Berger talking about the impact music and composition has made in her life. The founder of Composing Life, Berger is an advocate of using music to heal. She wrote Music of the Soul: Composing Life Out of Loss to help others use music in their own healing journey. Music has always been central to her life, whether it was dancing ballet, performing in an orchestra, or learning Bach on the piano. She pursued a doctorate in music, but a sudden injury to her hand put a brief halt to her […]

Fourteen Days to Heaven: Being with Mom at End of Life

Posted on November 2, 2015 - by James Einert

The phone rang early one morning as I was getting ready to go to work. “Come quick, something is wrong with your mother!” came my dad’s voice from the other end of the line. We quickly got into the car and headed the eighth mile to my mom and dad’s house. My mother had toxemia when I was born. Her blood pressure had gone sky high, and caused her to be blind for several months after I was born. Later, the doctors at Mayo Clinic could not believe I had lived when she told them I was two years […]

Letter to a Loved One, Twenty Years Later

Posted on November 1, 2015 - by Cheryl Espinosa-Jones

Dear Joanne, Today marks twenty years since I walked you over the threshold and out of your life on this earth. It feels like yesterday. It feels like 100 years ago. I cried last night at the benefit for the Breast Cancer Fund. It’s complicated when I cry like that. I’m crying because you are no longer bringing your good nature, your fierce determination and your insight into this life. I’m crying because so many others are going through what we went through (the room was full of them). I’m crying in wonder and disbelief at all the changes we […]

Father’s Day: The Many Aspects of Loss

Posted on November 1, 2015 - by Neil Chethik

The Open to Hope show’s Father’s Day special provides a number of tools for handling one of the most difficult days of the year. Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley welcome guests Neil Chethik (Executive Editor for the Open to Hope Foundation and author of Father Loss: How Sons of All Ages Come to Terms with the Deaths of Their Dads), Jenny Wheeler (author of Weird is Normal: When Teenagers Grieve), and Mitch Carmody (author of Letters to My Son, Turning Loss to Legacy). There are many complicated matters in father loss, explains Chethik. The younger the child, the greater the […]

Dying Patient’s Rights

Posted on October 31, 2015 - by Heidi Horsley

Dr. Heidi Horsley of the Open to Hope Foundation interviews Dr. Helen Chapple regarding how you can care for your loved one who’s in a hospital or hospice during their end of life time. She’s an anthropologist and nurse committed to dying patient’s rights. Dr. Chapple wrote No Place for Dying: Hospitals and the Ideology of Rescue based on her own professional experience and finding that knowing how to care for a loved one at the end of their life is far from innate. However, there are few resources available for caregivers in this position. As a nurse at the […]

Sibling Bereavement

Posted on October 30, 2015 - by Heidi Horsley

Dr. Heidi Horsley interviews Dr. Betty Davies, a professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Nursing. Also a professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Davies wrote Shadows in the Sun: The Experiences of Sibling Bereavement in Childhood for her students, those who have lost a sibling themselves, or anyone in the bereavement field. A leader in the field of sibling bereavement, Dr. Davies says she thinks of this type of bereavement as happening in a larger context. Look at the bereaved child in the context of his school, family, community, culture, and […]

Dr. Leeat Granek: Get Familiar with Death

Posted on October 29, 2015 - by Gloria Horsley

A psychologist at McMaster University in Canada, Dr. Leeat Granek talks with the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) about coping with grief. Like many in the bereavement field, Dr. Granek was drawn to the industry because of personal experience. Her mother died of breast cancer, and Dr. Granek immediately set her sights on the field of grief, death, and loss. She’s well-known in her field for her academic work, as well as working with family and patients who are struggling with their own losses. Dr. Granek organizes meetings across Canada to discuss loss. Becoming more comfortable with death […]

Pauline Boss: Ambiguous Losses

Posted on October 28, 2015 - by Gloria Horsley

Dr. Gloria Horsley with the Open to Hope Foundation interviews Dr. Pauline Boss, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Ambiguous loss is one that’s unclear. It’s not death—perhaps someone is physically missing, such as a soldier MIA or a 9/11 disappearance. There’s also being psychologically missing, like with dementia or severe addiction. In her doctoral research as a grad student, Dr. Boss got interested in ambiguous loss and this has continued throughout her career. It’s different than death because there’s no validation. With no body to bury, no death certificate, and no closure, it’s very challenging to cope. […]

Coping With Guilt after a Loss

Posted on October 27, 2015 - by Bob Baugher

Dr. Bob Baugher is a psychologist and death education instructor at Highline Community College in Seattle, Washington. He’s featured on the Association for Death Education and Counseling’s (ADEC’s) webisode talking about the many ways you can cope with guilt following a loss. After several years of working with the bereaved and helping them address guilt, Dr. Baugher has come up with seven key ways to help. The first is to identify your guilt self-talk. If you say something or think it long enough, you can make it come to life. That’s true of guilt, and it’s common with the bereaved. […]