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One Mother’s Grief Journey

Posted on August 20, 2010 - by Amy C. Maddocks

I lost my son, Connor, on January 3rd, 2007—the day my world came crashing down. I had waited 17 years for my miracle number two, as I wasn’t supposed to be able to ever have children again. Even my daughter, born in 1989, was a miracle. Now my son was being taken away from me. Connor was only three days old when he got an infection in his lungs that ultimately took his life. My husband and I were able to hold him while he took his last breaths. The doctors and nurses that had so valiantly tried to save […]

Laughter is Key to Grief Recovery

Posted on August 20, 2010 - by Harriet Hodgson

Humans were meant to laugh. The ability to laugh is wired into our minds, and that is a good thing for all who mourn. Four of my loved ones, including my elder daughter, died in 2007, and I thought I would never laugh again. As the months passed, however, my humor slowly returned. Laughing helped me cope with multiple losses. “I think my zany New York sense of humor is going to save me,” I told my husband. In the early stages of grief, my laughter was as rusty as an old hinge. If I laughed unexpectedly, I enjoyed it, […]

Researcher Seeks Sibling-Loss Survivors

Posted on August 19, 2010 - by admin

My name is Kaitlin Carrozza, and I am a doctoral student at Loyola University in Maryland. I am completing my dissertation on sibling loss, and I’d like your help with my study. The current study investigates individuals’ pattern of relating to others, how they cope following the death of a sibling, and their relationship satisfaction. If you have experienced the death of a sibling, and are interested in expanding our knowledge about the experience of sibling loss, then you would be a good candidate to complete this survey. The following link will take you directly to the survey, where more […]

How Long is Too Long to Grieve?

Posted on August 19, 2010 - by Barb Roberts

Is there some magic amount of time to grieve a death, or the break up of a relationship, the break up of a family, loss of a job, financial downturns, loss of a pet? I’m talking about grief and loss, hurting, struggling, pain, sadness, anger. How long does it take to “get over” someone or something? Would it be helpful for you to know that grief takes as long as it takes? I often have people ask me what is a normal time to grieve this. I tell them there is not a formula for grieving. Certainly experience and coping […]

Giving to Others Helps the Griever

Posted on August 18, 2010 - by Amy C. Maddocks

When your child dies at any age a part of you dies with them. Whether they only lived within the womb or whether they lived thirty years, a part of you is lifeless. The question you must ask yourselves is: What are you going to do with that missing piece? Can it ever be filled? If so, what will it be filled with? When my grandfather died, I felt as though my heart would break. He practically raised me, and to have him pass away was just plain sad. Then my father died and that heartbreak happened. To have him […]

Meditations on the Word ‘Still’

Posted on August 15, 2010 - by Nina Bennett

“But after tempest . . . /There came a day as still as heaven” (Tennyson) Still. An ordinary word, brief, easy to pronounce. When my sons were toddlers, I often told them to hold still while I was brushing their hair, changing their clothes, bundling them into snow suits. I would ask them to please sit still when they squirmed at the dinner table. In restaurants, wait staff offer a choice of sparkling or still water. This simple word took on a never-ending depth of meaning in 2003, when my granddaughter was stillborn. Born, yet still. Silent. Motionless. Dead, yet […]

How to Reclaim Power After a Loss

Posted on August 14, 2010 - by Harriet Hodgson

The other day, I came across a rerun of Oprah Winfrey’s television show. Interior designer Nate Berkus was one of her guests. He was there to talk about recovering from loss, something Berkus knows all too well. Five years ago, his life partner was killed in the tsunami that wreaked havoc on Thailand. When the date appeared on the calendar, Berkus would have an anniversary reaction and mourn again. In time, however, he came to think of the date as just a number. “I took back the power,” he explained. I understand his explanation because I lost four loved ones, […]

Bereaved Dad Defines ‘Courage’

Posted on August 13, 2010 - by Kelly Farley

Courage. It’s a word that paints many different images in our minds. Each one of us has a different picture of what courage looks and feels like. This may change for each one of us based on events we have experienced throughout our life. I want to tell you a little bit about my recent experience and how I, a bereaved dad, views courage. I was recently a guest workshop presenter for the Bereaved Parents of the USA organizations National Gathering in Little Rock, Arkansas. This was my first presentation on the subject of child loss and how it impacts […]

Medical Intervention for Pathological Grief?

Posted on August 12, 2010 - by K. Paul Stoller

If the information I have been writing about were in a text book, or taught in medical school, I would not be writing these articles for the Open To Hope Foundation website. But this information is not available, and I am one of the few physicians using oxytocin to treat grief . Thus, I feel compelled to get this information out to the public even though the public will need to involve their health-care providers to cooperate in following through on the suggestions I make. In my first article for Open to Hope, I wrote about my first-hand experience in […]

Using Music When Grieving Divorce

Posted on August 11, 2010 - by Tony Falzano

When we hear someone is grieving, we tend to think it is the result of loss brought on by the death of a loved one. But there are other losses that cause people to suffer grief. There is loss of health that can paralyze one’s independence and quality of life. There is the loss of employment that can not only drain one’s financial stability but tear apart the fabric of the family life. And then there’s the loss of a relationship brought on by permanent separation and divorce. With approximately half the marriages ending in divorce, we tend to think […]