Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

When Our Closest Loved One Has Died

Posted on June 1, 2012 - by Deb Kosmer

She laughed at my jokes. She never forgot my birthday. Once a week, she made liver for me, even though she hated it. She made it anyway for me. She tied my ties. She told me she loved me. She never minded my cold feet. She made me laugh. She visited my mother. She listened to me. She was the one who always got the family together. She always asked me how I was. She asked me how my day had been. She forgave me for not being perfect. She was always there. Our bed was never empty when she […]

Artist’s Block Follows Death of Grandfather

Posted on May 31, 2012 - by Brandi Reyna

When I was a teenager, I was an artist. Painting was a therapeutic release for me. It helped me to outwardly express in a positive manner my inner anguish, anger and pain from abuse and other traumatic experiences in my life. It was part of my normal to paint and create something on canvas; expressing the emotions that I need to; and then repaint the canvas white and do something else. I do not own any artwork from that period in my life. This is probably a good thing, as seeing some of the things that I created, might take […]

Man Writes Music to Ease Grief

Posted on May 29, 2012 - by Michael Nunley

My name is Michael, and I lost my talented, loveable, indescribable sister to suicide, and my solid, strong, and loyal father to a cancerous brain tumor- in the space of half a year. I don’t have to tell you how that felt. Most of you reading this have your own pain to help you empathize with my story. What I do want to share here with you is how I deal with it; how my music helps me and allows me to try and help others, how it brings me comfort, how it gives me strength. For me, my more […]

Still Mourning, Still Dreaming After Death of a Child

Posted on May 29, 2012 - by Kent Koppelman

Shortly after my son’s death, I came across his bathrobe in a closet; hugging it to my chest, my nose detected his scent. For the next few days, I frequently held his bathrobe to my face to breathe in his smell and perpetuate the illusion of his presence. The scent eventually dissipated, but the journey had just begun. I have approached many people to talk about their grief journey – especially parents who lost a child – hoping to learn something from them. What I ultimately learned is that even when the pain is similar, people grieve differently. When your […]

Letting Go to Move Forward

Posted on May 28, 2012 - by Cindy Adams

I’m sure my friends wondered why I still had the sympathy cards up 6 months after my husband died. I found them comforting. It visually confirmed all our friends and family that cared for my daughters and me. I wasn’t ready to put them away. I needed to find a special place for them and decided one day I’d get around to it. The closets were still untouched. One of Nelson’s shirts had a musty smell. Had it been that long? My husband died in April and now it was October. Many friends offered their help. I knew they just […]

What Will Happen to our Possessions After We Die?

Posted on May 28, 2012 - by Sandy Fox

When we are gone, who will want our pictures and possessions, especially if we have lost our only child? If we have surviving children and/or siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, will any of these people want the items we now cherish, or do these items lose their meaning entirely when someone in a family dies? Throughout my life and my daughter’s, I took many photos, saved many possessions and encouraged her to do the same. Here I am with all these memories that I enjoy having, and it scares me to think of what may happen to them when I […]

Strength and Glory after Husband’s Death: Elegy to a Tree

Posted on May 23, 2012 - by Laurel D. Rund

About six months after my husband, Marty, passed away I turned to the creative voice within me to help me express my soul’s grief. After enrolling in a drawing class, we were given the assignment to go outside and draw a tree. I did indeed have a favorite tree, outside my house on the golf course and I would sit and look at it in the sunshine and the lightning storms, taking great comfort in its strength and dignity. When I took my drawing pad outside to work on this assignment, to my horror and dismay I discovered that […]

Out of the Darkness, Into the Light

Posted on May 22, 2012 - by David Roberts

A Cold Case State of Mind On most Fridays from 5:00pm to 11:00PM, I am parked on the couch or in my bedroom, watching the “Cold Case” marathon on the ION channel. This seven-year television series revolved around a dedicated and passionate group of detectives who came together as a team to solve open murder cases. The series had great acting, scripts and story lines. Each episode ended with a song that reflected the personality, struggles and more so, the legacy of the murder victim. A Child Dies There was one episode that I watched on Friday, 5/4/12, that left […]

Discovering Something Greater than the Answer to “Why?”

Posted on May 21, 2012 - by Nan Zastrow

“Why me?” “Why now?” They are questions that many bereaved ask when they come to our support groups. I’m sure many wish that Gary and I could gaze into a crystal ball, and assure them there is a reason to go on living. It is human nature to ask, “Why?” Yet, there is seldom a satisfactory answer. Instead of answers, we often give the bereaved options for finding new meaning. They have embarked on an adventure and a journey far beyond their imagination; and it’s an arduous task that will challenge a lifetime of beliefs and assumptions. It’s a journey […]

Recovering from Grief: Creating Memorials Helps to Keep Your Child’s Spirit Alive

Posted on May 13, 2012 - by Harriet Hodgson

After our elder daughter died in 2007, my husband and I searched for ways to keep her spirit alive. Our daughter, a composite engineer with an MBA degree, was 45 years old when she died. Like every parent who has lost a child, we felt she died too soon. Other family members had also died — my father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law. We sobbed for them all. As days became weeks, and weeks became months, our tears slowed. “It was time and past time to heal the stones of sorrow within our hearts,” Bettyclare Moffatt writes in Soulwork. The time […]