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Do you want to read stories of others who have been where you are? Are you looking for bereavement help, and advice? Look no further. We offer over 7,000 articles written by our Open to Hope authors.

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Bringing Light into a Dark Place: Joining Inmates in Overcoming Hopelessness

Posted on December 7, 2009 - by Barbara Francis

I have been in and out of jail for well over a year. I’m not there because I’ve broken a law or violated probation. I visit the barb wired facility to bring hope into a very dark place. It’s part of my healing process after losing my best friend six years ago in a plane crash. Hopelessness is the unwanted companion I share with the jail’s residents. We have something in common. Jail sucks the light right out of the 120 female inmates. I, too, sat in darkness for years after the unexpected death of my friend Jody. The inmates […]

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For Young Woman, Feather at Christmas is Sign of Hope

Posted on December 6, 2009 - 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 […]

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Healing Grief through the Gift of Volunteering

Posted on December 5, 2009 - by Marty Tousley

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late . . . the love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him, ‘What are you going through?’ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson At some point in your grief journey, you may feel the need to channel your pain, as well as the time and energy once devoted to your relationship with your loved one, into something productive and meaningful through the gift of volunteering.  As one who truly understands the grieving process, you may feel […]

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Crossroads in Grief: To Hide or Persevere

Posted on December 4, 2009 - by Debra Reagan

To most folks, Aug. 6, 2005, was an ordinary day, but for me it became the worst day in my life.  I woke up that morning expecting to celebrate my birthday; instead, I learned of my youngest son’s death.  Despite the fact that I had many loving family members and friends, I found myself feeling isolated and numb.  It took so much of my energy just to make it through each day that I had nothing left for anything else. I drifted through my days in a fog of pain over Clint’s death. There were moments that I was sure I […]

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Connections to Daughter Abound Even After her Death

Posted on December 3, 2009 - by David Roberts

I still have a powerful relationship with my daughter Jeannine six-and-one-half years after her death. I believe that my relationship with her extends to other people in my life. I have been an adjunct professor at Utica College since January of 2003. I love my students deeply. They gave me energy when I had none, and purpose in a world that became foreign to me after Jeannine died. During the fall 2008 semester, I taught a Death, Dying and Bereavement class, and one of my students, “Jody,” shared an experience that she had during the semester. This is her story: […]

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Who Burned My Roles? How Our Identity Changes After a Loss

Posted on December 2, 2009 - by Mary Zemites

Our roles in life define us.  Parent, spouse, student, employee, sibling, and offspring are some examples.  Our identity is shaped by these roles. Before my husband’s death, my defining roles were mother, wife and caregiver.  With three young children and a terminally ill husband, these responsibilities took up the majority of my waking hours.  When Greg died, that changed dramatically.  In the aftermath of this loss, I naturally felt lost and confused.  Much of this was due to grieving his absence.  But, as time passed, I realized that I was also grieving the loss of my roles of wife and […]

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Creating Bereavement Songs Comforting to Families, Songwriter

Posted on December 1, 2009 - by Anna Huckabee Tull

I think I have the greatest job in the world. I get to sit across from people—people lost in profound, life-altering pain—and listen carefully to every word they say as they share their stories of life, loss, and memories. I get to take those stories and translate them into a different wavelength—a wavelength that, when they hear it, allows them to begin to heal, breathe from a deeper place, and start to know that even this most painful moment in their lives can eventually offer up some peace. And that “wavelength” is the wavelength of song. It is beyond my […]

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’60 Minutes’ Deserves Praise for Challenging Culture’s Denial of Death

Posted on November 30, 2009 - by Stan Goldberg

The 60 Minutes segment on end of life expenses did more than highlight inappropriate medical costs. It spoke to the role of medical technology in our cultural denial of death. As medical technology becomes more sophisticated in forestalling our inevitable end, we mistake “prolonging life” for “immortality.” Instead of treating death as a necessary price for living, we hide it as we do an embarrassing blemish. Rather than accepting it, we pretend it doesn’t exist. With every new life-stretching achievement, our gratitude to the medical community increases, their wealth grows exponentially, and our denial of death becomes easier. So easy […]

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Letter to a Son, Decades After His Death

Posted on November 30, 2009 - by Mitch Carmody

Dear Kelly,                                                                                                                                            November 23, 2009 I was going to name you Connor but decided on Kelly, another good Irish name… gosh that was 31 years ago…wow…now we are thinking about baby names again. We had named your sister Meagan, who is now due to have her second child at any moment. You left us, my son, when that veil between our worlds separated briefly and you stepped through. December 1st is always a grim reminder of that calendar day. It is approaching fast, like fierce storm clouds gathering on the far horizon; a dog howling deep down and fearful […]

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The Quantum Physics of Giving

Posted on November 30, 2009 - by Mitch Carmody

St. Frances of Assisi said: it is in giving that you receive, it is in healing that you are healed. I do not care what your religious background or belief system is, this 13th century Catholic monk hit it straight on the head. Nothing is more healing to our aching heart and soul then reaching out with a compassionate hand and heart to others in pain. During the course of my 8-year-old son’s battle with cancer, I attended a holistic college to learn massage. I wanted to be able to help rid toxins from Kelly’s chemo-ridden body and to give […]

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