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.
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A Stillborn Baby and the Fathers in Her Life
June 19, 2009
By Monica Novak – When I was a child, I prided myself on making the best homemade cards to show my parents how important they were to me. Father’s Day was probably the Big Kahuna of card-making for me because in the eyes of this little girl, Daddy was king. He was the one whose side I sat by for all those workbench projects, eagerly waiting to hand over a tool. And he was the one whose shoulder I cried on during the disappointments and heartbreaks of life. Somehow, Dad was always able to make it feel better and bring […]
A Wife Marvels at a Father’s Grief for His Daughter
June 19, 2009
By Harriet Hodgson — The death of a child is a lifetime loss and parents never recover from it. Instead, they learn to live with it. A popular belief is that men don’t cry; they hold their feelings inside. But my husband is not like that. Our daughter’s sudden death at age 45 from the injuries she received in a car crash affected him the same way it affected me. The shock stunned us. I have seen him cry. We cried together and took turns with our crying days. When I was overcome with sorrow, he comforted me.? When he […]
Mother Learns How to Comfort Bereaved Son
June 18, 2009
By Nina Bennett — I was used to fixing the problems Timothy, my youngest son, encountered when he was a child. If his older brother knocked down his castle of blocks, I helped him rebuild it. When he fell down learning to walk, I could pick him up. When he tumbled off his bike, I would bandage his scraped knee and send him on his way again. As he made his way through the teenage years, I was there to listen, offer advice if asked, and advocate for him when it was needed. I was faced with many difficult situations […]
Bereaved Eyes
June 17, 2009
“…Eyes — the windows to our soul…” She seemed so small and frail in the graduation party atmosphere. And yet this was her granddaughter’s party–a gathering of family and friends amid the festive tiki lights and streamers of tiny lanterns. High school had commenced for her granddaughter and in the late summer the youth would be ready to head out to the exciting world of college. Friends bringing congratulatory gifts were decorated in smiles and small talk. A grandmother deserved to be proud and happy at a time like this. Perhaps few outside of the immediate family could see what […]
Old Friends Never Forget
June 17, 2009
by Sandy Fox, A few months back I wrote about an email I received from my daughter Marcy’s first boyfriend, telling me how much he cared for Marcy. This week I received another email, from a good friend of my daughter from 25 years ago, who has been trying to find me for many years (she had only my former married last name and didn’t know I had remarried). She was finally able to get my email. She had heard about Marcy’s car accident years before and through her tears was writing to me. “Some friendships,” she said, “cannot be […]
Helping Yourself Out of Grief
June 14, 2009
by Sandy Fox When a child dies, the grief is intense. You become immobile. You don’t care about anything. You don’t want to think about anything except the child that you lost. Your number one priority now should be to take care of yourself. You may have other children who need you; you may have a husband who needs you; you may have a job or activities you are involved in that need your input. Grief affects the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical parts of your body. This change in your life will drain you physically and exhaust you emotionally. […]
Educating Merna
June 13, 2009
A few excruciating days after my four-year-old son Daniel died, I got a phone call from Merna, an elderly woman in our church. “Just think,” she said, “God needed another flower in his garden and he chose Daniel.” I felt something sour in the pit of my stomach and my swollen eyes widened in disbelief. Too numb to say a word, I let her continue, telling me I’d be fine and to carry on with my life and family. By the time I got off the phone, anger had risen within me. “God needed another flower!” a fellow-bereaved mother spat […]
Unfinished Motherhood
June 13, 2009
By Clara Hinton When child-loss occurs, a mother goes through a difficult time of emotional turmoil and questioning. “Am I still a mother?” “Does my child still have a birthday each year, or does time stand still?” “Can the mother/child relationship continue to grow, or am I now an ‘unfinished mother’?” Losing a child often places a mother on a road that begins a lonelier journey than ever expected, one that can never really be explained. There was a beginning, but with the death of the child, there is no middle and no end. Everything seems unfinished. Hopes and dreams […]
How a Daughter Helped a Dad Who Had Lost a Child
June 13, 2009
By Clara Hinton — I only remember two times in my life that I saw my father cry: the day he realized all of his hair was falling out at age 30, and the day my 13-year-old sister died. The sight of seeing my father slumped over on the footstool sobbing with his face in his hands after my sister’s death has remained with me for over 50 years now. The day she died, part of my father died, too. Because my sister died on June 5, Father’s Day was only a few days away, and I was worried about […]
