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December 7, 2006 Quotes from Challenges of Being a Bereaved Stepparent – Babe Muro

BABE MURO.? Babe Muro’s 19-year-old stepdaughter, Lori Singer, died in an automobile accident on March 30, 1998.? Lori was excited about being in the U.S. Navy and was to leave for Guam in a matter of days.? Lori is survived by her brother Keith who continues to live with Babe and his mother Michelle.? Michele is the co-leader of the Staten Island Chapter of The Compassionate Friends, and Babe is what he likes to call the “Shadow Leader” always willing to help behind the scenes.? Babe has led stepparent support groups at The Compassionate Friends National Conference.? Babe Muro:? So […]

Grief and Loss: Another Perspective

Grief and loss is a multifaceted counselling field based on the loss of someone or something. “Grief is our response to loss, particularly the death of a loved one. Grief can affect our thoughts, feelings, behaviours and beliefs, and our relationships with others. Many people experience feelings of sadness and anxiety. The experience of grief can sometimes feel wave-like; a person may feel that their grief is behind

Grief Quotes: Healing After a Loved One’s Suicide: Bill Ritter

AUGUST 10, 2006 ? HEALING AFTER A LOVED ONE?S SUICIDE: BILL RITTER, whose first son, Bill Jr., died from suicide at the age of 27. An attorney, Bill Jr. was diagnosed with ADD, Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, and died at his own hand in 1994, only four months after diagnosis. His father, a now retired Methodist minister, wrote the book Take the Dimness of My Soul Away?Healing After a Loved One?s Suicide, which has received national recognition for its thoughtful and personal look into a very difficult subject.

Grieving Through The Holidays

Holiday Grief- what is it? How does it differ from other grief? What is grief anyway? These are but a few questions you might want to explore as we move ever deeper into the holidays, the season of celebration, gift-giving/receiving, parties and gatherings of various sizes and diversities.

How to Turn Grief into Joy

I was with my daddy when he died. Excuse me, I was with my daddy when his spirit left his body. I drove him to the emergency room because he was having chest pains. He said that they weren?t too bad, and his color was good. He was still walking. In fact, Daddy walked into the cubicle in the ER and hopped up on the gurney. Almost as quickly, he hopped off saying, ?Whew, doggie! Feels like somebody?s got a knife in my back, right between my shoulder blades.? Daddy said it with a great big grin on his face. […]

Christmas Mourning

Deecember is a cruel month. Christmas sales, decorations, advertisements -everyone seems so happy and cheerful – it’s easy to feel alone. It’s precisely at these happy times that the loss of our loved one can be felt the strongest. We remember only too well who is missing. Whether our loss was recent or whether it occurred many years ago, we are constantly surrounded by sights and sounds that trigger memories of holidays past, and wracked with dreams of what might have been. Holidays involve expectations about getting together with

Grief Quotes: Surviving a Sibling: Scott Mastley

Scott Mastley: It didn?t hit me immediately, but after a while, it kind of came to me that I was an only child and that eventually I was going to be older than my older brother and that was a pretty weird situation where I remember the day, actually, when I lived longer than he did and I still look at the pictures and even now, I feel like he looked older than I do now which I?m sure is not the case, but it just feels that way. He?s always going to feel like my older brother. Scott Mastley: […]

The Grief And Belief Connection

“Grief is healing: To take away our grief is to take away our healing. And learning about life after death helps us heal with greater hope, comfort and peace.” ~ Bob Olson In approximately five years of investigating the possibility of life after death, I have discovered convincing evidence that there really is an afterlife, that we really do continue to exist after death, and that our loved ones continue to watch over us and guide us in the spirit world. But this is just the beginning of my discoveries.

Dakota Winds: Planting Seeds of Hope

Thank you for the opportunity to share my experience with the IPPC (Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care) retreat led by Deborah Dokken, your guest on Thursday. I am the parent of Dakota, an adorable “old soul” who was diagnosed with cancer at two and died one week before he turned five. That was ten years ago. In those ten years, our family has turned our pain into a passion to help others who also find themselves suffering the loss of a loved one. When Dakota died, my husband wanted to buy our two year old son, Dylan, a gift to […]

How to Respond to the Bereaved

Last week, I visited my 81 year old widowed Aunt following the death of her boyfriend, also age 81. She was expectedly quite distressed following his sudden death from heart failure. In spite of having been widowed for over 20 years, and having three children and grandchildren and lots of friends, she felt very alone. She reminded me that even at age 81, she still needed to be held and loved and neither her children nor grandchildren could fill that role in quite the same way.

Open to Hope is an online community offering inspirational stories of loss, hope and recovery. We believe hope is the bridge between loss and recovery.