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Mother Maintains Contact with Deceased Son

Posted on April 17, 2024 - by Sheri Perl

Mother Loses Son to Addiction To all of my fellow parents of deceased children — mothers and fathers — I offer greetings. I too have suffered this unthinkable loss and know the grief that accompanies it. My son, Danny, died on July 1, 2008, from an overdose of alcohol and prescription drugs, a death all too common in this day and age. Shortly after he passed, I read that the incidence of deaths due to overdose has quadrupled in young people between the ages of 18 and 23. Dan was right in there at 22. Needless to say, this has […]

The Death of the Love of Your Life

Posted on April 15, 2024 - by Jane P. Williams

A Grief Perspective A grief perspective is personal. It is an individual’s way of thinking about and understanding their own grief. As grief is unique to every person and every relationship, our perspectives will differ from each other. But sharing our differing perspectives may offer us new ways to contemplate our grief. Prior to retiring, I was a clinical psychologist who worked in hospital settings with individuals who had experienced trauma, been diagnosed with a life-threatening or chronic illness, were dying, or were grieving the death of a loved one. I had read and written a lot about grief. After […]

Doctor Journeys to the Afterlife

Posted on April 15, 2024 - by Kim Pierce

DOCTOR ON A JOURNEY In an earlier Open to Hope essay, I wrote about the riveting After-Death experience of a friend I call Chief. The anesthesiologist had a heart attack 60 feet under water while scuba diving in 2007 and, by all measures, was clinically dead. (That’s why he insists on calling it an After-Death experience.) Chief wanted to write a book about his After-Death encounter but crossed over for good in 2021 before he could finish. He did get as far as a first draft, a manuscript he shared with me because I also wrote a book about the […]

After Husband’s Death, Dreams Must be Reinvented

Posted on April 14, 2024 - by Christine Thiele

Dreams Die with Your Spouse One of the hardest struggles I’ve found about widowhood is that the life you had before pretty much dies with your spouse. Well, at least mine did. The hopes, dreams and plans that we made as a couple were buried with my husband. Every morsel of my being was changed because he is no longer here for me to love or be loved by him. At first, his vacancy left the obvious holes; no more him, no more seeing, smelling, holding, or sharing with him. As time passed, more holes appeared: no one to help […]

Soul and Grief Connection

Posted on April 8, 2024 - by Ilana Estelle

The soul and grief are deeply intertwined in many spiritual and philosophical traditions. It’s only natural that after someone dies, those they leave behind will start to question and want to find meaning. Grief can lead individuals to ask questions, prompting them to think about the nature of existence and the soul’s relationship with the material world. This journey, though difficult, can lead to profound insights and philosophical and spiritual growth, reshaping our understanding of life and death. BELIEVING IN THE AFTERLIFE Believing in the afterlife can offer immense comfort to those grieving, providing a sense of continuation beyond physical […]

When a Child Dies of Drug Addiction

Posted on April 8, 2024 - by Joni Norby

A Child Dies of Drug Addiction Ben was an addict. That declaration is enormously painful and takes even more courage to write than Ben died at age nineteen. He was an honor student, football captain, neighborhood skateboard star, altar server, little league all-star, and lead singer in a punk rock band; he was handsome, popular, kind, and gentle. He was my first born, my only boy…he was an addict and heroin killed him. When Ben was in the throes of his disease, I would jolt awake, stare at the blank ceiling, feeling my blood turn to ice. With my hands […]

Do We Ever ‘Get Over’ the Death of a Child?

Posted on March 27, 2024 - by Anne Dionne

Getting Over a Child-Loss There was a time when I believed that people should “get over” their grief by the 12th month following a loss. After all, isn’t that what our society believes to be true? In the summer of 1976, I was employed by a doctor in a medical office building. There were several other offices on our floor, and at noon time, I would meet with some of the other doctors’ employees for lunch. One woman, whom we called Gracie, had lost her 16-year-old son two years prior in a drowning accident. Each day at lunch break, Gracie […]

Loss of a Child: A Pain Like No Other

Posted on March 26, 2024 - by Louise Lagerman

A Pain Like No Other All loss is hard. All loss is lonely. But there is something about child-loss that puts it in a unique category. I have experienced other types of loss. When my very much loved father died in 2001, I was devastated. My father was a wonderful, kind man, a devoted husband and father. I grieved for him. I will forever miss having him in my life. I will treasure my wonderful memories of him forever. Then, in 2006, my 23-year-old daughter suddenly died. In a single phone call, my life as I knew it came to […]

Poem Eases Sister’s Pain

Posted on March 25, 2024 - by Judy Lipson

After our sister Jane’s death, Margie and I, working long retail hours, did not communicate very often. Although we did not speak about our loss, Margie sent me a poem she’d written. She eloquently expressed her feelings in it. Who has broken into our lives? Who has spoken to our brokenness? Who keeps breaking into our presence? We don’t have all the answers. We do have a lot of questions. We search in a world of bereft. Descent upon our hearts, for we need renewing away. We await your love and power to heal and bless. Refresh us now. Enlighten us […]

Unsolved Homicides May Destabilize Survivors

Posted on March 25, 2024 - by Lori Grande

Unsolved Homicides Destabilize Many Lives Homicide is a complicated loss, and its reflection resides in a constant state of metamorphosis with each new experience that follows in its wake. In order to even scratch the surface of resolution of such a loss, we are propelled to find something in the horrific event to transform, to make anew within ourselves. My brother’s unsolved homicide created a process of on-going destabilization for many years. Over time, that destabilization turned into an awareness of what is survivable and what can be transformed, even without a resolution. I found my greatest power in self-definition […]