Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

Anticipatory Grief and its Power

Posted on October 31, 2013 - by Harriet Hodgson

I was my mother’s family caregiver for nine years. She had dementia and, day by day, I witnessed her decline. My mother seemed to be dying right before my eyes and there was nothing I could do about it. Being her caregiver sparked an interest in anticipatory grief, a feeling of loss before a death or dreaded event occurs, and I studied it for a dozen years. After my mother died I wrote a book about anticipatory grief. Dr. Lois Krahn, a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist, was my co-author. A year after the book came out Dr. Krahn called me. “Before […]

The Search For Spirit During Our Grief Journeys

Posted on October 30, 2013 - by David Roberts

A Brand New World I don’t operate under the same rules or beliefs that I did over ten years ago. I don’t think I would have thrived today if I did not make a conscious effort to look at the world differently . It took a catastrophic event to challenge my perspective on life and to eventually transform my perspective. It would be desirable for transformation to occur during times when life was treating us well. However, when things are going smoothly, there is no motivation to change our perspective. It is usually a severe shock to our system that […]

Mom Wears a Mask on Halloween

Posted on October 28, 2013 - by Sandy Fox

Monday is Halloween, and although we do not celebrate it like we did when my daughter Marcy was alive and young enough to enjoy the night, we still answer the door to the goblins and fairy princesses from our neighborhood. “How pretty you look,” I say to the young children wearing long princess dresses. “And how scary you look,” I tell the young boys who have on evil masks they hope will scare everyone. We have spooky music playing through the intercom when they ring the bell. We used to do that with Marcy’s friends especially. Most of the very little […]

Enjoying the Holidays … Differently

Posted on October 26, 2013 - by Chris Mulligan

By Chris Mulligan — It’s time to party! the television advertisements say this time of year. Party? How could I party when some days I did not even want to get out of bed? I did not want to go to work. I did not want to confront my day. How could I party when I could not even look at my face to put on a happy one? Getting through one’s days are difficult at best after the death of a child, but enduring the holiday season seems almost impossible to surmount. Depending upon the length of time in […]

Accepting What We Cannot Change

Posted on October 24, 2013 - by Donna Miesbach

Life is very much a continual weaning process. We come into the world dependent on other people, but over the course of time we are forced more and more to rely not so much on others as on That which is within us which is both our Source and Sustainer. I’m talking about learning to put your hand in the only Hand that can lead you not only through life but through death as well. The process begins when death first comes into our lives as children through the gradual loss of family and friends, and it does not end […]

Twelve Things to Remember about the Holidays and Grief

Posted on October 23, 2013 - by Deb Kosmer

1. That I could not predict how I would feel or react at any given moment. 2. That as much as I missed my loved ones I would miss them even more during the holidays. 3. That my feelings were normal. 4. That I have a right to be sad. Someone I loved very much was no longer here where I could touch them. If I am angry that is okay too. Anger is a natural reaction to pain. 5. That taking care of myself and doing or not doing whatever I decided did not make me a selfish person. […]

Don’t Believe One Widow’s Experience Will be the Same as Yours

Posted on October 23, 2013 - by Catherine Tidd

You know…I always hesitate before I write about something hard I’m going through. There is always a fear that a new widow will read it and think, “My gosh…I’m just trying to get through today. This woman has been at it for almost four years and she’s still having a hard time???” I’m always worried about it because when I was newly widowed, I became friends with a woman I had an instant connection with who was about a year ahead of me in the Grief Game. As I neared my one-year mark, so proud of myself that I had […]

Missing my Husband, Missing my Champion

Posted on October 22, 2013 - by Christine Thiele

When Eat, Pray, Love released years back, I read it. I enjoyed it and I even read Liz Gilbert’s sequel to it and enjoyed it too. When the movie came out, I wanted to see it. I never caught it in the theater, but remember watching it at home. I remember not really liking it too much. Oh well. Last night, in a pre-holiday stress bout with insomnia, I caught some of the movie on TV. As I enter my eighth holiday season alone, the stress fills me up and manifests in a severe lack of restful sleep. I’m familiar […]

Hanging On Through the Holidays

Posted on October 21, 2013 - by Beth Marshall

The music, smell of gingerbread, and shimmering lights usually stir up warm holiday memories, but this year something is missing. Actually someone is missing, and the holiday cheer seems to be making things worse. My most intense journey of grief came suddenly, beginning weeks before the holidays with the death of my mom. “Beazy” was more than a mom; she was my best friend. The thought of Christmas without her was impossible to imagine. If you’ve lost someone close this year, you may understand. Maybe you’re wondering how you’ll be able to hang on through the holidays. If you’re tempted […]

How the Graveyard Became a Place of Peace

Posted on October 18, 2013 - by Alice Wisler

There’s the joke about the cemetery. “How many dead people are in there?” The answer: “All of them.” Or, “People are dying to get in there.” It brought a smile to my lips the first time a ten-year-old told me. But after my son died, I was wondering why there are so many jokes about death and being dead. “We joke about what we fear,” Daniel’s pediatric oncologist at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hospital told me. Well, I don’t fear the cemetery anymore. The movies and TV shows, especially around Halloween, like to depict the graveyard as a scary place with ghosts […]