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Coping With Violent Events

Posted on August 8, 2019 - by Gloria Horsley

At lunch today, a friend asked me if we go to disaster areas when there has been a shooting. I explained to her that disasters are a time that communities come together. The immediate response can be overwhelming and outsiders can be more of a burden than help unless invited to come in as a special expert. Part of coping with the event is for the community to come together. It has been my experience that when events are planned by outsiders you end up with the out of towners presenting to and supporting one another. Families and friends tend […]

The First Thing To Do After Losing Your Baby

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Catherine McNulty

Grieving is hard. Grieving the loss of your baby is even harder. Let’s be honest, it just plain sucks. If you are reading this because it’s happened to you, know that this is one of the most challenging experiences anyone can go through. It’s traumatic and requires support. When we wake up to the reality that our baby is gone, we are forced to learn how to grieve and move forward in a completely different life, a life that doesn’t include watching our baby grow up. Let me start by saying, I am so glad that you’ve found the Open […]

How Can We Put Hope Into Action?

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Ann Schiebert

By Ann Schiebert, PsyD When I first had the honor of being invited to be a guest on Open to Hope TV, I was taken by the title “Open to Hope” and began to consider what being open to hope actually means. I started by thinking about what hope is, and what one has to do to open one’s self to hope. How do we operationalize hope? For me, hope usually applies to the idea that we want something positive to happen to others or us. We hope for a miracle recovery for someone who has been told they have […]

For Men: Helping Your Children Communicate

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Herb Knoll

As a widower, you know that you are not the only one grieving. Following the loss of your wife, pain is felt by many others, such as your wife’s parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, fellow parishioners, or friends. It can be just as intense as what you experience, and this is especially likely for children. Being the surviving parent of grieving children is yet another challenge you may face, and sometimes it is the most challenging role of all. You need to understand that role and help tend to your children’s grief while you tend to your own. It […]

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Tambre Leighn

What is the story you tell yourself about your loss? Even as a child, I understood the power of stories. Through words, I could escape into worlds far, far away. Between the covers of books, I could find characters I could relate to when I felt misunderstood. Stories gave me comfort, sparked my imagination, and made me curious about people and places outside of my own environment. Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since our early days. History is built around the word. Stories are how we pass down knowledge and information to future generations. They are […]

10 Lessons Widowhood Has Taught Me

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Kerry Phillips

1. You Can Go On Even When You Feel Like Giving Up I honestly didn’t think I’d survive the first month of being widowed, yet here I am… 88 months later. The sad, broken part of me couldn’t see myself climbing out of the rawest stage of my grief. There were many times that I questioned why I was left here without my spouse. There were times when I literally had no tears left to cry. But somehow, through the grace of God, I survived the first year, then the next, then year 3…and on and on. It feels like […]

Facing Your Mortality Can Be a Gift

Posted on July 18, 2019 - by Harriet Hodgson

We grieve because we love. Coming to terms with personal mortality can be a form of grief. Life is precious and we don’t want it to end. I faced my mortality when I had open heart surgery a month ago. When I was about eight years old I had Scarlet Fever. The disease damaged my heart and I have lived with a heart murmur for decades. A year ago I noticed I was short of breath. Sometimes I gasped for breath–not a good sign. I had a variety of tests and, after studying the results, my doctor referred me to […]

When Deaths Accumulate

Posted on July 14, 2019 - by Judy Lipson

One life ends, and a new chapter begins. My father’s decline and ultimate death emancipated me, letting the reins loose that I held so tightly. My father and I had spoken daily. I knew the loss of my father, another colossal void in my life, would ensure a huge devastating blow to me. The clock started ticking to do the work necessary to grieve for my sisters, Margie and Jane, who had died years before. My father’s departure altered and transformed the family nucleus. How do we pick up the pieces of a broken family where the crystal had been […]

I Will Always Love You

Posted on July 11, 2019 - by Judy Lipson

Much as twins often have a sense when the other is in danger, so do some sisters. The night Jane died, the exact time of her death, both Margie and I woke up at 3:30 AM. We knew. I have no recollection of Jane’s funeral or the Shiva. It is all a fog. I know Margie and I wrote something about our younger sister that the Rabbi read as part of his eulogy. Jane (to us, Janie, our dear sweet little sister): From our earliest memories on Indian Ridge Road, when you cried having your picture taken, you were always too […]

What Grief Has Taught Me

Posted on July 9, 2019 - by Lisa Boehm

My daughter Katie is now in heaven. Everything is new. Everything is different. Everything is devastatingly difficult. I’ve learned to walk, breathe, and exist without letting grief keep me down, because I’m learning to live with my grief. I know that grief will be my companion forever, so I must learn to get along with it. Losing my daughter has been the single worst thing that has happened to me, yet I feel I have learned so much. I struggle to say that there is good in Katie’s death, or any child’s death, but I will say that there has […]