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Pain is Inevitable; Suffering is Optional

Posted on April 10, 2015 - by Nan Zastrow

“Does time heal all wounds?” If you are a griever, you have no doubt heard this cliché more than once. On April 16, 1993, our son, Chad, died as a result of suicide. Family and friends know that it doesn’t pay to ask, “Do you ever get over it?” Our response will always be the same. “A parent never forgets the loss of a child.” The loss will always be fresh in our minds, but in an instant, we can experience a flashback to the exact moment we received the news. It’s a moment frozen in time. Grief hurts. We […]

Avoid the Grief Pitfall of Isolation

Posted on April 8, 2015 - by Joni Norby

Once a loved one dies, the desire to isolate can be overwhelming. Spending time alone to rest, meditate, and remember is restorative, but grief experts tell us shunning others ultimately won’t bring peace. It’s important to find people who can help us work through the grieving process. Sometimes these people can be family members and friends, but sometimes we need to engage with groups or professionals who can truly understand our pain and help us recover. Here are a few resource groups my husband Dave and I used to find the peace we so desperately needed. 1. Al-Anon Family Groups […]

Mother’s Day: A Happy and Sad Occasion

Posted on April 6, 2015 - by Randah Hamadeh

One Mother’s Day after another passes by since I lost my daughter in September 2006. It does not get easier as years go by. How can this day not intensify my grief after losing one of my three children? Mother’s Day will never be the same ever! This day that used to bring me joy will always be blended with sadness. It is yet another reminder that one of my children left a big void in my home and life. On this day, I always have this wish to go back in time to when all my three children woke […]

Grief in Spring?

Posted on March 23, 2015 - by John Pete

If Spring makes you feel better and to feel new hope, that is a good, positive and nurturing thing. But it may not be true for everyone, and no one should feel they have to hide their true feelings. It is perfectly normal to experience new heightened grief and/or grief-related anxiety in Spring, just as it is in other seasons of the year. Although warmer, sunnier months can be nurturing and inspire new hopefulness, grief does not suddenly go away just because seasons change. Spring generally brings a sudden flurry of change and things begin to move faster all around […]

Reaching Out, Sharing Grief

Posted on March 22, 2015 - by Sherry Cassedy

When our son, Timmy, died at age 20 from a skateboard accident, many of our friends, searching for words, said “I can’t imagine…” And of course they can’t. It is beyond our expectations, beyond our understanding of reality, that a vibrant, young person could be plucked from the world so suddenly. It was certainly beyond my imagination and shook my worldview to the core, leaving me disoriented and feeling very vulnerable. The loss of a child is a passage through a portal into foreign territory. The landscape changes. The ground shifts beneath our feet; we find ourselves at new junctures, […]

When Grief Subsides….What’s Beyond?

Posted on March 20, 2015 - by Cindy Adams

Grief a major part of a widow/widower’s life. Although everyone works through grief in their own way, there are still some similarities. I’d guess the majority of widow/widowers go through various stages of shock, denial, guilt, anger, depression, and hopefully acceptance. But every journey will also be unique. Once we work through our stages of grief and accept our loss, the grief begins to subside. Then we have to decide what we’re going to do with our life. There are endless possibilities of new goals and dreams for our future. Each one of us will have a different story to tell. Some widows remarry within a few […]

Turning Tragedy into Hope

Posted on March 17, 2015 - by Neil Leatherbarrow

March 17th is normally for most people a day of celebration – St. Patrick’s Day. What a saint he was too, not only bringing a message of hope to the Irish, but also to the rest of the British Isles during his lifetime. March 17th, 2011, was a day that changed my life for all the wrong reasons, as this was the day I lost my 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte. The day started out like any other, Charlotte going to school, coming home, doing her homework, and gobbling her food down before rushing out to her dance school. Charlotte was probably […]

Can Grief Be a Friend?

Posted on March 7, 2015 - by Linda Hunt

Anne LaMott, in her book Traveling Mercies, writes, “Don’t get me wrong. Grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of Life, of the now, of the sense of living spirit…The bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you.” Could one of these gold nuggets be that grief can actually be a friend? In no way did grief feel friendly in the early devastating weeks after our 25-year-old married daughter Krista was killed while volunteering in Bolivia. […]

Signs From Heaven

Posted on March 5, 2015 - by Lora Mercado

Many of us who have lost a loved one have received signs from them after they passed away. These could be small signs like a significant song playing on the radio or seeing a butterfly. You can also experience things such as vivid dreams with your loved one, who appear healthy and happy. Cherish these moments and hold them dear to your heart, because this is their way of showing you that they are not gone from your life, they are still with you and guiding you through your grief. Whenever I receive a sign from my son Alex, who […]

Loving My Wife through Her Grief

Posted on March 3, 2015 - by Jill Kraft Thompson

This article was written by John Thompson, husband of Open to Hope contributing writer Jill Kraft Thompson. March 25, 2015, will mark the thirteenth anniversary of the day my wife Jill lost her family. Of course, I am not talking about our son Franklin and me, but Jill’s previous husband Bart; their two young sons, Benjamin and Samuel; her mother Shirley; and her niece Sarah. Jill, Bart, and their sons were living in Avezzano, Italy, when Jill’s mother, sister, and niece came to visit during their spring break in March 2002. They decided to travel north to sight-see. Bart was […]