Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

Vehicles of Healing

Posted on February 28, 2012 - by Deb Kosmer

Vehicles help us move. They help get us from one place to another. Sometimes the vehicle of choice is our car. Other times it may be a rental car, a bus, a cab, a boat, a bicycle, a hot air balloon, a plane, or even a skateboard. There are many different vehicles to help move us through our grief. The possibilities are endless. Most if not all of us will need to utilize more than one vehicle on our grief journey. The vehicle is just a tool and we have to use the tools that will work for us. Some […]

30 Ways to be Your Own Best Friend

Posted on February 26, 2012 - by Maureen Hunter

For many years, I was anything but my own best friend. I neglected, badgered, criticized and overindulged myself. It was much easier to be nicer and kinder to my friends than it was to myself. Maturity and the experience of devastating loss, has taught me much. I now know that in grief or in fact, anytime in life, I am the only one who can look after me. Me, myself and I. Many times, I didn’t think I had time for me. I thought my needs weren’t as important as others in my life. I was too busy giving out […]

Getting the Routines Back in Your Life

Posted on February 25, 2012 - by Gloria Horsley

February, with Valentine’s Day, is a great time to take a survey of where I stand on my love meter. Am I on the high or low side this year? In order to do that I have to take myself back to what I call Ground Zero. For me,Ground Zero was in April 1983 when my 17 year-old son Scott was killed in an automobile accident. That boy was the love of my life. At the time of his death I wondered if I would ever be happy again. As with my love meter your love meter may have been […]

Birthdays and Becoming a ‘Grand Family’

Posted on February 25, 2012 - by Harriet Hodgson

Yesterday was my grandchildren’s birthday. The twins (one boy, one girl) turned 20, a surprise to me and to them. When my grandchildren moved in with us, they were 15 ½ years old. Now they are college sophomores, young adults pursuing their education and their dreams. Where did the time go? What did I learn in the last five years? I learned that two kids and two grandparents can come together to form a grand family. It’s a miracle. Before their parents died, the twins used to come to dinner with their mother every Sunday. Though they didn’t know us […]

Daughter’s Cats Help Dad Keep Connection

Posted on February 23, 2012 - by David Roberts

My daughter Jeannine died on March 1,2003, at the age of 18 due to cancer. One of the things that I struggled with during my early grief was regret and guilt over the fact that I was too wrapped up with work and finishing graduate school to see what was happening to her sooner. Of course, given the fact that the type of cancer she had was incurable did nothing to lessen my regret or guilt. I was her father and one of my jobs was to protect her from harm. That was the one task that God gave me […]

Thanksgiving Eve ‘Miracle’ Service

Posted on February 20, 2012 - by Mark Triplett

The death of my son Adam in 1997 was (and still is) the most difficult thing I have ever had to face in my life. Adam died in August of 1997 in a firey airplane accident in New Richmond, WI. Little did I know, or could have imagined, that God would prepare my heart and mind nearly a year before the tragic event at a Thanksgiving Eve worship service in 1996. The event I describe below (which I refer to as a ‘miracle’) happened exactly as described in this post and to this day I am still learning from the power and […]

Build a Grief Toolbox

Posted on February 19, 2012 - by Sally Grablick

There is value in writing things down, especially when you’re struggling with the symptoms of grief. I decided to make a list of the all the things we’d done that had seemed to help us, with the intention of sharing them with others. I call these things “tools.” ü Anti-depressants – Talk with your physician about taking something to get you over the hump. There is no shame in it, so don’t suffer needlessly. You’re going to hurt no matter what you do, but these at least enable you to function. ü Cry – You don’t always have to be […]

Grieving Men, Raising Boys

Posted on February 18, 2012 - by Deb Kosmer

Last night I sat in a room filled with grieving men Some missing a parent or sibling but most a spouse For once not a minority sandwiched within a group of women, but a part of a group connected to one another by gender, death, and heartache. This morning as I looked into the eyes of my 14-month-old grandson I couldn’t help but think of those men who once were little boys and who still carry many of their little boy hurts in their grown-up hearts and adult sized bodies. The pain I heard and felt in that room last […]

Remembering ‘The Last Lecture’ co-author Jeff Zaslow

Posted on February 17, 2012 - by Tom Zuba

“Best selling author, Jeffrey Zaslow, who wrote best-sellers such as The Last Lecture about a professor dying of pancreatic cancer and a recent book on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ recovery was killed February 10th in a car accident. Mr. Zaslow, 53, is survived by his wife and three daughters.” Soon after our daughter Erin was born in 1998, my wife, Patricia Brennan Zuba, left her media relations position with United Charities and launched Bish Communications, her Oak Park-based public relations firm,. To serve her clients well, Trici inhaled all things Chicago-media. Jeff Zaslow was Chicago media. Together, Trici and I […]

The Storms of Grief

Posted on February 17, 2012 - by Cathy Seehuetter

I sometimes feel like my mood is reflected in the weather, albeit differently now. Before Nina died, I used to dread those dreary cloudy days and felt my best when it was warm and the sun shone brightly. Physically and mentally, I could feel the difference. However, in the early years after Nina died, my outlook flip-flopped. I was better able to tolerate those days where the sky turned a lackluster shade of gray. I felt in tune to the drabness of the skies, as it went along with the darkness in my heart and soul. I welcomed it. Luminously […]