Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

Creating a Community of Grievers

Posted on May 7, 2011 - by Lauren Muscarella

It’s not what you say; it’s what you do. Every now and then, I smack my head for saying the dumbest thing. ”I should have said this not that,” I exult. Since I write http://mamaquest.org, a blog about losing my mother, and run http://trauma2art.com, a site about creative expression after loss, I should know exactly what to say when someone tells me about their experience in grieving. I don’t actually. We all experience something different even if the themes are the same. I have some standard phrases that I use when someone first loses a loved one. As a general […]

Mother’s Day Flowers Keep Showing Up

Posted on May 6, 2011 - by Vicky Bates

The Mother’s Day flowers still arrive every Saturday afternoon from the local florist shop. Before I had children, my mother always sent flowers to me because, she said, she wouldn’t be a mother without me. Years later, as another Mother’s Day approached, I had a baby to go with the day and planned an ocean-side stroll, followed by brunch. The temperature was around 72 degrees, the sun was shining and the birds were singing their little hearts out. We were a Hallmark card in motion. As my husband guided the stroller toward the outdoor café, our captivating Gap-attired baby began […]

A Sudden Truth: Living After the Death of Your Spouse

Posted on May 6, 2011 - by Carl Mathis

Losing a spouse is one of the most emotionally grueling experiences an adult can go through. The deafening emptiness of your home without your partner, the realization of dependency on your spouse, and the loss of everything that you once shared with—companionship, a friend, a person to turn to for advice—these are hard pills to swallow. For women, especially mothers, this is an unbelievably difficult change in their lives. Being suddenly left to raise the children alone and having to be the sole breadwinner for her now incomplete family is a hurdle many cannot fathom. As you grieve, however, you […]

Heaven Bound

Posted on May 6, 2011 - by Deborah Tornillo

Heaven Bound Year after year On your special day Mother’s Day I brought you flowers Gave you a hug and kiss Reminded you how special you were. Every one of those years I knew you were grateful For my gifts and my love Yet, a sadness remained In your beautiful blue eyes It remained throughout the years. I remember that dark day When we were told that Your only son, my only brother Was killed in war On Mother’s Day Body never recovered. But, this Mother’s Day I will rejoice for you, and Will no longer […]

Osama bin Laden’s Death: Tips for Talking with Your Child

Posted on May 5, 2011 - by Suzy Yehl Marta

The news this week of Osama bin Laden’s death evokes countless emotions. As I look back on the tragic day of September 11, 2001, I shudder with the memories of fear for our country and the immensity of how Rainbows For All Children could help the families who had loved ones die. There’s also the generation that grew up only knowing a post 9/11 life, and as CNN said, they “learned as children that the world is a scary place where strangers with hatred in their hearts steer planes into buildings, grown-ups cry for days and everything can change in […]

Grieving and Resilience

Posted on May 5, 2011 - by Susan Berger

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about a book by a Columbia psychology professor, George Bonnano, called The Other Side of Sadness (2009). This book received many endorsements from the academic community claiming revolutionary thinking about how the bereaved experience and adapt to the loss of a loved one. His main point is that the majority of those who grieve are able to handle their loss on their own, without professional counseling, because human beings are “naturally resilient.” “The good news,” he writes, “is that for most of us, grief is not overwhelming or unending.” Since [loss] “is a […]

Mother’s Day: Look for the Woodpecker

Posted on May 4, 2011 - by Gloria Horsley

With Mother’s Day quickly approaching, I would like to wish you all peace and harmony. If not peace, try distraction. I am a golfer and a couple of weeks ago was watching a match. After winning a sudden death playoff, one of the golfers was asked how he kept his focus under stress. He said that his golfing coach had given him the tip of looking into the distance at the trees and trying to find a woodpecker. Well, today, folks,I was walking home from Starbucks with my coffee cup in one hand and of course my cell phone in […]

A Mother’s Heart

Posted on May 4, 2011 - by Jean Williams

A heart grown weary, A soul shattered by loss. How can it be, that I still live, And yet my son does not. As mother Mary, “kept these things,” I pondered in my own heart. Did Mary know her Son would die? As surely, I did not. Mary cried, for her Savior Son. And I, for mine, We have a mother’s heart. Inspired by Luke 1:19, “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” (KJV) The poem above is rough, but it says much about how Mary’s situation kept me going after Joshua died by suicide. […]

Room For Change: Changing Walls within Loss

Posted on May 3, 2011 - by Susan Reynolds

Walls are dividers. Walls are providers. Walls are low. Walls are high. Walls are protectors. Walls are prisons. Walls with cracks fall down and can be rebuilt or replaced with something else. Moving through many changes after loss (the major one being the death of my spouse), I have moved my literal walls. In fact, I have moved three times within the last 6 years. I have constructed walls from blue prints; I have adorned and painted them. I have purchased a new home only to sell it 2 years later and rent after 30 years of owning my own […]

Yes, another Mother’s Day….

Posted on May 2, 2011 - by admin

Mothers Day – 2011 There is no word in English to describe that parent who has lost a child. There is no such word in any language. I can only assume that is because it is the unthinkable. It is against nature, against all that should be. And yet it happens. It has happened to me twice. Both our son and our daughter died in their 20’s as a result of having Cystic Fibrosis. It is over thirteen years since the tragic death of our son. It will soon be eight years from that heartbreaking day when the wretched disease […]