Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

This Holiday Season, Complete These Sentences…

Posted on November 24, 2011 - by Deb Kosmer

When someone we love dies, most of us always wish for two things: one, that the death never happened, that our loved one had never gotten sick and died, or never gotten into an accident and died, and two, if we could just have one more day with them, one more day to say the things we didn’t get to say or to hear them say to us, to feel their arms around us one more time, to say or hear the words I love you or good bye or whatever words we long for still. This holiday season or whenever […]

Widow Wonders if She’ll Ever ‘Fit’ with Another Man

Posted on November 23, 2011 - by Laurel D. Rund

Liana watched as the email came in. A “wink” from the cyberspace-dating world. God, she said to herself, how did I get myself into this? She settled down into the office chair and clicked on the picture. Ugg, not for me. So she pushed the search button and scanned the faces that were supposed to match with her. Looking at their eyes, their smile – trying to find someone who seemed familiar, someone to fill the huge void in her heart. She knew that it was really too soon to start dating again, but the computer drew her in and […]

Sister is Gone, Her Legacy is Immortal

Posted on November 22, 2011 - by Shirley Wiles-Dickinson

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, remains and is immortal”. ~ Albert Pine When I heard those words, I immediately thought about my sister. Sandra was a school teacher. She taught school for well over 30 years. She was passionate about her work, her students. The last 10 years of her life, she taught special needs students. Sandra was a kind, caring, a very compassionate woman. Just over two years ago, when she died, I remember hearing people talk about the things she did for others. The night of her […]

Cliffs Notes for the Beginning Griever

Posted on November 21, 2011 - by Sally Grablick

How is it we are taught to love, work, marry, and procreate, but no one teaches us how grieve? The Victorians had it down to a science. They even had a parlor in their homes where they hosted the funerals of deceased family members. That’s where the term funeral “parlor” came from. People wore black for a designated length of time, and grieving families were not asked to socialize. The only thing expected of them was to rest and recover from their loss. As chunks of time passed, certain “social privileges” were reinstated. After the death of my son, I […]

Thanksgiving Day Brings Sweet, Sad Memories

Posted on November 20, 2011 - by Harriet Hodgson

Thanksgiving is a hard day for me. My parents were married on this day and my elder daughter, now deceased, was born on Thanksgiving. I can still smell the tantalizing smell of roasting turkey wafting down the hall from the hospital kitchen and the thyme that was added to the stuffing. But there was no dinner for me because I was in labor. When I think of this family holiday, I think of my daughter. We gave her birthday presents at many Thanksgiving dinners and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. Now there are no birthday gifts and no songs. Memories […]

Helping a Close Friend Deal With Bereavement

Posted on November 19, 2011 - by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

No one wants to see a friend suffering from grief but when our friend has lost someone they care deeply about they will have to grieve. Grieving is the natural emotional response to loss. It’s a painful emotion to observe in anyone but even more so when it’s our friend. No one wants to see a friend sad. It’s instinctual that we wish to ease their pain. Sometimes, because we cannot change the fact that someone has died, we feel we cannot be helpful. While it is true we cannot bring the deceased person back to our grieving friend; we […]

The Holidays: Plan, Set Boundaries, Smile

Posted on November 18, 2011 - by Rachel Kodanaz

For some reason, we all have embedded in our minds that once Thanksgiving arrives, it is time to increase the level of stress we place on ourselves. No matter what type of planning we do for the holiday season, we all tend to let the gift-giving and the changes in daily schedule and family dynamics affect our holiday season. Couple that with grieving the loss of a loved one, and it is enough to push even the strongest person over their threshold. Now add the workplace stress, and there seems to be no hope for survival through the tough, lonely […]

Giving Thanks Even for Our Troubles

Posted on November 17, 2011 - by Marcia Gaddis

It’s a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and I am thankful my family is coming to visit! I am thankful I can get out my mother’s china and polish the silver and set a beautiful table for lots of people I love. I am thankful there are little children who will be running around, pulling the dog’s tail, playing with my children’s outgrown toys. I am thankful we have a comfortable home in which to welcome everyone and plenty of food to share. I am thankful for my friends, my health, and my family’s health, the beauty of the world, my […]

Grief Soup: The Mix of Emotions

Posted on November 16, 2011 - by Paul Bennett

If only grief were simple: sadness, tears, missing that beloved person. If only we could be alone in stillness with the absence (and the starting presence) of that dear person we’ve lost. Maybe then we could simply rest in the plain sorrow of love and let our grief be. What you get, though, is it not just grief but grief soup – a rich and varied blend of emotions that is as unique as you are. Grief soup is a mixture of love and sadness, fear and anger, regret and resentment, with a healthy dose of loneliness, most likely, and […]

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Posted on November 15, 2011 - by Carla Blowey

Few of us are ready to assume the position and the responsibility that comes with our new role in the family when a parent dies, no matter what our age. My mother died of ovarian cancer, when I was a young mother. I assumed Mom’s holiday rituals and family duties because I thought she would have expected that of me. I really didn’t want to be in charge (the men in my family would protest but it‘s true). If life could have been normal again with Mom at the wheel driving us into that celebration frenzy that only she could […]