Harriet Hodgson

Harriet Hodgson has been a freelancer for 43 years, is the author of thousands of articles, and 47 books, including 10 grief resources. She is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists, Alliance of Independent Authors, Minnesota Coalition for Grief Education and Support, and Grief Coalition of Southeastern Minnesota. She is well acquainted with grief. In 2007 four family members died—her daughter (mother of her twin grandchildren), father-in-law, brother (and only sibling) and the twins’ father. Multiple losses shifted the focus of Hodgson’s work from general health to grief resolution and healing. She has appeared on more than 185 radio talk shows, including CBS Radio, and dozens of television stations, including CNN. In addition to writing for Open to Hope, Hodgson is a contributing writer for The Grief Toolbox website and The Caregiver Space website. A popular speaker, she has given presentations at The Compassionate Friends national conference, Bereaved Parents of the USA national conference, and Zoom grief conferences. Her work is cited in Who’s Who of American Women, World Who’s Who of Women, Contemporary Authors, and other directories. For more information about this busy grandmother, great grandmother, author, and speaker please visit I’m no longer Assistant Editor, I’m the author of 47 books, and my website is www.harriethodgson.net.

Articles:

Recovering from Grief: Creating Memorials Helps to Keep Your Child’s Spirit Alive

After our elder daughter died in 2007, my husband and I searched for ways to keep her spirit alive. Our daughter, a composite engineer with an MBA degree, was 45 years old when she died. Like every parent who has lost a child, we felt she died too soon. Other family members had also died — my father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law. We sobbed for them all. As days became weeks, and weeks became months, our tears slowed. “It was time and past time to heal the stones of sorrow within our hearts,” Bettyclare Moffatt writes in Soulwork. The time […]

Thoughtful Memorials Keep Your Child’s Spirit Alive

After our elder daughter died in 2007, my husband and I searched for ways to keep her spirit alive. Three other family members also died, my father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law. We sobbed for them all. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and our tears slowed. Finally, the time came to think about memorials. As Bettyclare Moffatt writes in “Soulwork,” “It was time and past time to heal the stones of sorrow within our hearts.” How could we honor our daughter? We brainstormed on our options, and narrowed the memorials down to three things, parental goals, our daughter’s interests, her […]

A Willingness to Take Chances May Come from Loss and Grief

Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to a parent, according to Gloria Horsley, PhD and founder of Open to Hope. She made this observation on a radio talk show. Since the worst thing has already happened to you, Horsley continued, you take chances and do things like founding a foundation. I understand her point. After my daughter died in 2007, I started to take more chances. In the past, I tended to be a conservative person, but that has changed. I’ve said things I never thought I would say and done things I never thought I […]

Crying Unexpectedly in the Middle of a Talk

I speak to national and local groups about loss, grief and recovery. Last week I spoke to a group of Elder Network volunteers in my community. It was a small group, a dozen people gathered around a central table. The hour-long talk was about anticipatory grief, something everyone goes through, and something many fail to recognize. My talk began with a summary of the nine years I spent caring for my mother, who suffered from progressive dementia. The stress of caregiving increased as my mother’s dementia progressed. “Each day, I wondered if this would be the day she died,” I explained. […]

Counseling for Ambiguous Loss: One Expert’s Approach

Ambiguous loss is loss without closure. There is no body to view or bury, no death certificate, no inkling of what happened to your loved one. Uncertainty and worry become part of your days and seep into your being. Though ambiguous loss has many of the same symptoms as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), therapists and counselors treat it differently. Counseling hinges partly on how long you have been suffering from ambiguous loss and the strength of your support system. It also hinges on family structure. Several years ago, I suffered an ambiguous loss when a close relative died. I […]

Have You Suffered an Ambiguous Loss?

I had never heard of ambiguous loss until my daughter, a licensed family therapist, told me about it. The term was coined by Pauline Boss, PhD, of the University of Minnesota. It came from her research and the clinical studies she has been conducting since 1974. What is ambiguous loss? Basically, it is loss without closure. There is no body or death certificate. You may be experiencing this loss now if a parent has Alzheimer’s, a sibling has chronic mental illness, a runaway child has never been fund, or a military spouse is missing in Afghanistan. According to Pauline Boss, […]

Birthdays and Becoming a ‘Grand Family’

Yesterday was my grandchildren’s birthday. The twins (one boy, one girl) turned 20, a surprise to me and to them. When my grandchildren moved in with us, they were 15 ½ years old. Now they are college sophomores, young adults pursuing their education and their dreams. Where did the time go? What did I learn in the last five years? I learned that two kids and two grandparents can come together to form a grand family. It’s a miracle. Before their parents died, the twins used to come to dinner with their mother every Sunday. Though they didn’t know us […]

Help Can Come from Unexpected Sources, Like Ukelele Music

Years ago, I heard an author say all life experiences applied to a book when he was writing it. The same could be said of grief support. When you’re grieving, you may find help in unexpected places and from unexpected people — like a professional ukulele player. Today, as I was surfing television channels, I came across a CNN program about Jake Saimabukuro. A Hawaiian musician of Japanese descent, Jake started playing the ukulele at an early age and his music is all over the Internet. He talked about the simplicity of the ukulele and described it as an “instrument […]

Creating Positive Affirmations for a New Year

Losing four family members in 2007 changed my thinking. I wondered if I would survive multiple losses. More worrisome, I wondered if I would ever be happy again. It didn’t take long for me to realize I needed an attitude adjustment. Somehow, I had to turn my negative thoughts to positive ones. I began to write affirmations. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Affirmations came to me in the car, at the grocery store, and while I was fixing meals. At first, I wrote the affirmations in my mind. But I wrote so many affirmations I started a computer file […]

A New Answer to the Question, ‘How are You?’

“How are you?” became a dreaded question. Four family members, my daughter, father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law, died in 2007. My daughter and former son-in-law died from the injuries they received in separate car crashes. Family members and friends couldn’t believe the story and I couldn’t either. Suddenly, our twin grandchildren were orphans and my husband and I were GRGs, grandparents raising grandchildren. Recovering from multiple losses takes longer than recovering from one. As I discovered, your emotions bounce around a lot and you may go backwards on the recovery path. When I looked for information about multiple losses on […]

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.