Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

‘It’s Our Responsibility to Find Hope Again’

Posted on October 11, 2011 - by Vicky Bates

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. — C.S.Lewis We put so much emphasis on our loss, and rightly so in the beginning. It is natural. The emptiness and pain that comes with the death of a loved one will remain our focal point as long as we let it. Don’t let your heartache […]

Falling into Autumn, Season of Bitter and Sweet

Posted on October 10, 2011 - by Kate McGrath

The air has changed. Rather than being sun-kissed by the warmth of the day during the summer months, the crisp air of fall is an invigorating embrace which envelopes me and is a welcomed presence. The air is not the only change this season brings: classes have resumed, regular work schedules have begun again, and the rhythm of busy schedules have ensued. This past summer, now a sweet memory, has ended; however, as the seasons ebb and flow, I can look forward to next summer. Now however, I am falling in love with autumn once again. Of all seasons, fall is […]

Helpful Tips For Managing the Holidays For the Bereaved

Posted on October 9, 2011 - by Gloria Lintermans

While grieving we go through many firsts as important dates come up on the calendar. Whether it’s the first anniversary, birthday or holiday, it’s good to have coping strategies in place to rely on to help us cope. The holidays can be a particularly difficult time. While we are used to being with our family members during this time, sadly, an important person in the family is missing. And while we take comfort in having family close-whom we depend on for support-often while in their midst we still feel sad or lost remembering past occasions and events because this time […]

Pennies and Pachelbel: Signs from a Son

Posted on October 8, 2011 - by Beth Seyda

Back in 1997, my husband Mark and I had been married for almost 12 years and had been trying to get pregnant for the last six when we stared at the positive results from the home pregnancy test. To say we were thrilled was an understatement. Sixteen weeks into our pregnancy we had a routine ultrasound that showed our baby had a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. This would prevent the lungs from developing and growing properly during pregnancy and our baby would have a 50% survival rate when born. We learned we were going to have a boy and named him […]

Learning to Fly Again

Posted on October 7, 2011 - by Deb Kosmer

When someone we love dies, we have to fly on anyway. But what if we have forgotten how to fly? The death of someone we love grounds us. It leaves us without a pilot or a flight plan. Chaos and confusion replace logic and order. We may feel as if we have been dropped into a foreign land, a land where we do not speak the language. Suddenly all the familiar places are gone, the places we felt safe, the places where our life made sense. Our mind does not seem to work. Our feet don’t seem to work. […]

An Uncertain Truth

Posted on October 6, 2011 - by Gale Massey

She stood on the railroad tracks listening for the train when another sound started in the distance, soft at first then growing louder, closer. She recognized the sound, knew in a moment that the siren was coming closer, coming for her father. As she bolted down the dirt path toward home, a window opened in her mind’s eye and she knew what had happened. Time is like that when the world is twisting in on itself and turning upside down. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was the old man across the street they were looking for this time. He […]

A Sign From Mom at the Holidays

Posted on October 6, 2011 - by Megan Prescott

In 1987, when I was eighteen years old, my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia two weeks prior to Christmas. We brought Christmas to her in her hospital room that year in the midst of her chemotherapy, complete with a homemade turkey dinner. What I couldn’t have imagined then was that in eight short months my mother Nancy would pass, to be followed only three weeks later by my brother Adam in a car accident. In the months to follow, I thought a lot about a specific conversation I had with my mother mere days before her […]

Now I See: Grieving and Raising My Grandchildren

Posted on October 5, 2011 - by Harriet Hodgson

“You’re coming home with us,” I said. My husband and I and our twin grandchildren were standing by the hospital’s emergency entrance. Tragedy had found us again. Nine months ago, their mother (our daughter) died from the injuries she received in a car crash. Their fatherhad just died from the injuries he received in another car crash. It was beyond belief. While each year has its triumphs and tragedies, 2007 was a really hard year. My daughter and father-in-law died the same weekend, my brother died a few months later, and now my former son-in-law was gone. Like the words […]

Letter to Family After a Death

Posted on October 4, 2011 - by Mary Westra

Dear Extended Family of Peter, Christmas is over. We made it. Now we await his birthday, the anniversary of his death, other Christmases, wedding, other funerals. We sincerely thank you for your greetings and gifts though we did not send any to you this year. You have asked what you can do to help us. As you know, grief does not end. You surely must miss him too. After all, you knew him when he was a babe in arms, had gangly legs and arms, funny teeth, stupid antics. You can help us by talking about Peter, with us or […]

Terminal Grief

Posted on October 3, 2011 - by David Roberts

My life as I knew it ended on May 26, 2002, when my eighteen-year-old daughter Jeannine was diagnosed with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare, aggressive and incurable form of cancer. Jeannine died on March 1, 2003, at the age of 18, approximately ten months after diagnosis. When she was diagnosed, the experience itself was surreal. In the blink of an eye, I went from the everyday joys of being a parent to a vibrant daughter to the horror of having that same child diagnosed with a terminal illness. My subsequent research revealed that the five-year survival rate for her cancer was […]