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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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Dog Returns in a Dream and Comforts Owner

Posted on January 16, 2009 - by Luellen Hoffman

By Luellen Hoffman — Recently while doing research for my book, Special Dream, I asked people if they ever had someone close to them die and then appear to them in an unusual dream. Over three hundred people responded and out of that group, five people wrote to tell me their dog had died and then appeared to them in a dream. I couldn’t use their stories in my book, but when I saw the web site about the death of pets, I knew this would be a wonderful place to share their heart-warming story. Here is one story, related […]

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Forgive Because There’s No Other Choice

Posted on January 15, 2009 - by Fred Luskin

Donna writes in: It’s been 7 months since my beautiful little boy was tragically run over by his father’s pickup truck.? I have been to a therapist since, I’m in EMDR therapy since witnessing the trauma that followed, I take medication to ease my emotions.? But yet, there is no friend, family or therapist who can help me ease my anger?and stop blaming my husband for this accident.?

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Helping a Friend Who Loses a Child

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

The Message By Betsy Bottino Arenella – My spiritual awakening began on December 11, 2004, with a life-altering phone call. I was walking down the front hall stairs in a bathrobe, my wet hair wrapped in a towel, when I saw my husband standing at the bottom. He was holding the telephone and looking up at me with a strange expression. “Bad news,” my husband said. “Sophia passed away last night.” My legs buckled and I fell into a sitting position on the stairs. Sophia was my best friend Melyné’s rosy-cheeked, active toddler. She had turned one the week before […]

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Remembering a Child Who Lived a Short Life

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Jenny Hander – One of the greatest tragedies in losing a baby is that you don’t get the chance to form enough memories to carry you through a lifetime of living without them. It isn’t that you forget to remember; it is that you don’t have many memories to recall. Though I think of my sweet daughter every day, there are some days I feel as though I created her in my own mind. I ask myself, “Was she ever really here?” I know that she was, but she was here such a short time and so much time […]

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October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Month

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Nina Bennett – I know all too well the devastation of pregnancy and infant loss. My precious granddaughter Maddy, after a healthy full-term pregnancy and normal labor, with no indication of fetal distress, slid still from her mother’s womb. She was a perfectly formed, beautiful baby, with every indication that she would survive delivery. But she did not. As you can imagine, our entire family was devastated. It turns out that Maddy was one of more than one million babies in the U.S. to die in pregnancy or in the first few months of life last year. For a […]

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Stillbirth: “We Knew You Before You Were Born”

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

By Judith O’Reilly – I love my children. All four of them: there is one I cannot hold. Not true. I hold him in my heart. I just cannot hold his hand in mine. He would be eight today. Two days before he was due to be born, he stopped moving. I did the things you do, ate vanilla ice cream for which I had no appetite, climbed awkwardly into a hot bath, dribbled water onto my still belly, fell silent, thought: “Fuck and buggery.” My husband drove me to hospital. I spoke. “I’m sure it’s fine, but I can’t […]

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Why the Stillborn Should Have a Certificate of Birth

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Monica Novak

Copyright by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore. My story began 14 years ago. On July 27, 1994, I gave birth to my fourth child. It was my baby girl’s due date. About 15 minutes prior to birth, my beloved child, Cheyenne, died. After a full postmortem evaluation, the pathologist could find “no determinable cause” for her death. I was left with countless questions and few answers. About one week after her death, I received Cheyenne’s death certificate in the mail. What I really wanted, though, was the record of her birth. So I called the vital records office in Arizona to request […]

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Swayze Inspires as He Battles Cancer

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Eric Tomei

By Eric Tomei —

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Am I Holding Onto the Past? Why We Keep the Clothes of Those We Love

Posted on January 13, 2009 - by Carol O'Dell

I’ve had my Daddy’s suede jacket hanging in my closet since 1982, the year he died. I didn’t know I’d be a keeper, but I guess I am. It’s brick-red suede, and has completely worn through at the edge of the sleeves. It no longer smells of him, but I keep it. I remember when I was a child, riding with him to Sears on Saturday morning just to buy salted peanuts and look at the tools in the tool department. He wore that jacket. I was adopted and maybe that makes me more sentimental, I don’t know, but keeping my […]

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A Widow Asks: What Does He Think of Me Now?

Posted on January 13, 2009 - by Mie Elmhirst

By Mie Elmhirst I had a lovely holiday this year. Nothing really big happened. My daughter Anneke and I baked bread, we told each other silly stories about what presents the other was getting, we made soup, went to a movie, hugged a lot and we celebrated our family. Our very small family. We were enough. I had enormous gratitude as I remembered where we were eight and nine years ago, when we were trying to keep our heads above water as we watched our husband/father die, and then as we struggled to learn how to live without him. But […]

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