Open to Hope Articles
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 3,000 articles written by our Open to Hope authors.
SORT BY RELATIONSHIP
Grandmother Shares Story of Double Loss
January 18, 2010
January 25th will be my third grandchild’s birthday. There won’t be any cake or ice cream or a party. She isn’t here with us. Instead we will put balloons on her gravesite. She would have been 14. Her name was Jacy Kay. She had my middle name. We would have had another teenager in the family. When I hear of people complaining of their teenager, I keep thinking of how I would have loved to have had the opportunity of getting to know her as one. But she was taken from us before she even had the chance to live. It was […]
How Couples Grieve Differently After a Child-Loss
January 11, 2010
A friend of mine told me recently that she is moving on with her life after her only son died 2 1/2 years ago. Her voice sounded upbeat. Her spirits were soaring. Only good things are happening now, and she is enjoying what she has to look forward to: grandchildren growing up, graduating, marrying, a good relationship with her daughter-in-law who just remarried. “Now,” she says, “I want to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.” When this first happened, I could not convince her she would survive the loss. She told me that […]
Taking a Rest on the Journey through Grief
January 10, 2010
Grief is an incredibly difficult venture, a monumental climb from the pit of despair. It is an absolutely exhausting venture that drains you physically and weighs heavy on your mind. As I look back on the months following my son’s death, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t moved at all. Even though others may perceive me to be progressing, my movement is lateral at best. As the span of time increases, it becomes more and more difficult to lift myself up. The days slip by, but the moments never escape me. The more I struggle to hold on, the […]
When Canceling a Holiday is Not an Option
January 6, 2010
Holidays and other special days are times that we miss our loved ones more acutely. It is these family gatherings where everyone is joyful that make the void feel more enormous. After suffering through my first Easter, first Mother’s Day, my daughter’s birthday, my birthday and all of the other special days, I knew Christmas would be unbearable. I didn’t know how I could possibly survive it. The first Christmas of my bereavement, I wanted to keep the spirit of the season at least for our surviving son who was experiencing more pain than any 18-year-old should ever have to […]
Holiday Healing: Rest, Compassion, Prayer
December 28, 2009
The holidays have arrived. Normally they are a time for family fun and celebration but when you are grieving the loss of someone who has died, the season is different: it is painful. Grieving is a long process. It takes time to heal from the loss of a loved one. When we are grieving, we can feel completely overwhelmed with sadness, overwhelmed with missing the beloved person who has gone. We long for them. We think we will not survive. So we ask ourselves, “How can I make it through these days?” Here are some thoughts that have helped me. […]
David Roberts and Alan Pedersen; Navagating the Holidays
December 24, 2009
After the death of his daughter David started Bootsy and Angel Books to support those who have suffered a loss. He is the author of several books. Alan Pedersen is a singer and songwriter and has been inspired by the death of his daughter Ashley to compose and share his music with other grieving families across the globe. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/audio.opentohope.com/2011/01/David-Roberts-and-Alan-Pedersen-122409.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Holiday Grief as a Gift
December 23, 2009
Grief is a profound gift. It is one we never request, but one we learn to respect. When grief comes, we are given a way through our pain and suffering to a new way of being… to becoming more real and more open to love than ever before. I say this as a way to encourage each of us, me included, to feel fully the pain we are experiencing, especially as we enter the Holiday Season. The memories of “how it used to be” and all the seasonal traditions, now celebrated without our loved one(s), weigh heavily upon us and […]
Choose Positive Memories During this Season of Hope
December 22, 2009
Patrick Malone’s remarks at The Compassionate Friends Atlanta Chapter 2009 Candle Light Remembrance. We would have traded places with our child without a second thought, but we weren’t given that choice. When that enormous pain of grief rolled into and totally disrupted our nice, neat, little life, we didn’t have a choice. Even now, months or years later, when a residual wave of grief chooses to crash along our shoreline, we aren’t given a choice. It just shows up. None of us aspired to be part of The Compassionate Friends. In fact, it ranks last in organizations that parents and […]
Don’t Say You’re ‘Fine’ When You’re Not
December 19, 2009
When we are on a grief journey and someone asks us, “How are you feeling?” the tendency is to say, “I’m fine.” But we’re not fine, and one of my friends pointed that out to me a few months after my daughter died. She said in a rather exasperated voice, “You’re not fine and don’t say you are!” I was briefly taken aback and then realized she was right. Why say you’re “fine” when you’re not? From that point on, I told the truth. My answer became, “I’m doing the best I can. Each day is a challenge and I […]
