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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Dr. Katie Eastman: Transforming Life After Loss
July 31, 2025
Struggling with change? Join Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley with guest Dr. Katie Eastman for practical tools on resilience and personal growth after loss. Dr. Eastman is the author of Uplifting: Inspiring Stories of Loss, Change, and Growth and co-author of Percolate: Let Your Best Self Filter Through. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/www.opentohope.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Dr-Katie-Eastman-Transforming-Life-After-Loss.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Fingerprints: Losing a Husband, Living with Grief
June 30, 2025
Losing a Husband When he used to take off his socks next to our bed and throw them ceremoniously to the cork floor, he would spread the fingers of his chubby peasant hands on the wall of our bedroom to keep his balance before rocketing into bed beside me. It took at least three years to have a finished wall in that bedroom. Seeing his greasy fingerprints all over my carefully chosen hue of green with a matte finish made me grouchy. Now, I recline with four pillows surrounding me as I look at his fingerprints, which are almost all […]
Living and Dying Together
June 30, 2025
Rosita and David Actions better explain love, as love is an action word. It requires a series of give and takes between a man and a woman to fulfill just a short 60,70 years on this earth together. I want to share a love story that I encountered during my time as a Hospice Chaplain years ago. Rosita and David had come from entirely different lives. Rosie, as she would have me call her, came from a very conservative, extreme spiritual family in Argentina. Her father was a lawyer and her mother a teacher. And David was born and raised […]
Young Widow Can Imagine Not Marrying Again
June 25, 2025
Young Widow Can Imagine Not Marrying Again Ahhh, dating. Sooner or later this becomes every widow’s favorite topic with other widows. And there is a very good reason for this: Because we feel like it’s unacceptable to talk about it outside of the herd. But I can guarantee you that, for most widows, it’s one of the first things we think about after our husbands die. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s human nature to wonder what comes next. And for those of us who suddenly find ourselves involuntarily single, we want to know: Am I supposed […]
Elizabeth Coplan: Conversations on Loss and Grief
May 29, 2025
Looking for an opportunity to express your grief? Join Dr’s Gloria and Heidi Horsley and their guest Elizabeth Coplan playwright and author of Grief Dialogues: The Play and Grief Dialogues: The Experience for a timely conversation about death, dying and grief. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/www.opentohope.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Elizabeth-Coplan-Conversations-on-Loss-and-Grief.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Moving after Loss: The Grief of Leaving the Home You Love
May 27, 2025
Moving after Loss Moving is one of the most stressful experiences of life. My husband and I have moved so many times we’ve lost count and we’re good at moving. We’ve lived in our present house for 20 years, the longest time we’ve lived anywhere, and made the house our own. This house has nurtured us through some tough times and now we must move. In the fall, my husband’s aorta dissected for the second time. He had three emergency surgeries, including a 13-hour operation to graft a Dacron descending aorta to his existing aorta. It was life-threatening surgery. His […]
What a New Widow Should Know to Survive
May 17, 2025
When you suddenly find yourself without your life partner, you don’t know what to expect. Your world’s been turned upside down. Like the mighty oak caught in a fierce wind, you feel uprooted. Your feet don’t touch the ground. You think you’re crazy. But you’re not. You’re just a new widow. Your husband is dead and your life is forever changed.
Kate Mollison: Widowhood; Tuesdays We Wear Black
May 15, 2025
Are you looking for help to navigate your grief? Join Dr. Gloria Horsley and her daughter Rebecca Bara and their guest, widow Kate Mollison to learn about her unique approach to grief and bereavement. She is a widow, grief and bereavement coach and founder of On Tuesdays We wear Black. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/www.opentohope.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Kate-Mollison_-Widowhood-Tuesdays-We-Wear-Black.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Finding Joy While Grieving: Carrying the Tiger
April 28, 2025
Finding Joy While Grieving Recently, a grief counselor told me something disturbing. He had been describing my new memoir, Carrying the Tiger: Living with Cancer, Dying with Grace, Finding Joy while Grieving, to one of his support groups. When he reached the point where I began to form a new relationship just a few months after the death of my beloved wife, several of the women stopped listening. “Women grieve, men replace,” one said dismissively, and the others nodded in agreement. They assumed that my actions suggested emotional abandonment, or perhaps a kind of infidelity, both of which they found […]
