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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Returning: When the Matriarch Dies
April 11, 2015
“Where are we going?” she asked again. “We are going to get your hair done,” I tell her for the third or fourth time in the last few minutes. I look over at my mother-in-law, “Min” as her grandchildren had renamed her. She nods and looks out the window. Her hair is a mat of fine white-blond straw, her face is calm but with an agitation brewing beneath as she remains confused despite my answers and assurances. She notices a woman walking on the street, disheveled and unkempt. “Would you look at her!” the judgment revealing Min’s preserved image of […]
Creating a Grieving Sanctuary: Alexandra Kennedy MA MFT
April 9, 2015
Alexandra Kennedy MA MFT is a psychotherapist and author of Honoring Grief: Creating a Space to Let Yourself Heal, Losing a Parent, The Infinite Thread: Healing Relationships Beyond Loss,and How Did I Miss All This Before? Waking Up to the Magic of Our Ordinary Lives. She offers a unique perspective to grieving through her work with the imagination. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/audio.opentohope.com/OpenToHope_AlexandraKennedy.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Writing Through Losses: Neil Chethik
April 2, 2015
Neil Chethik is the author of the book, FatherLoss: How Sons of All Ages Come to Terms With the Deaths of Their Dads. He is the articles editor of the Open to Hope website. He is also a bereaved sibling. In 2011, his brother Peter died at the age of 55 after 35 years of mental illness. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/audio.opentohope.com/OpenToHope_NeilChethik.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Spirituality and Grief: Lisa Irish
February 12, 2015
Lisa Irish is no stranger to loss. At age 2, her mother’s paralyzing car accident changed a normal childhood. At 11, her father died, and at 25, her mother died. She learned to look through the lens of loss, felt its power and trusted its teaching. Today she understands herself as a woman of hope as she serves as a Chaplain and bereavement coordinator at Yale-New Haven Hospital. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/audio.opentohope.com/OpenToHope_LisaIrish.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 39: Finding Hope After Multiple Deaths
January 14, 2015
On this show Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley interview Jill Kraft Thompson an amazing woman who has re-built her life after losing five people she loved the most. She survived the car crash that killed five members of her family – her husband Bart, her two sons, Ben and Sam, her mom and her niece, Sarah. She is the author of “Finding Jill”. Richard Beck Ph.D. and trauma expert gives his thoughts on trauma recovery. The show will closes with singer songwriter Paul Alexander singing “Light a Candle”.
Writer Penny Slusher on Somber-Free Rites
January 8, 2015
Buying presents for the dead and gifting them; knowing your “mama dance” and texting as the deceased: this and more when memory artist, Nancy Gershman talks with writer and actress Penny Slusher about somber-free rites. Currently, Slusher is working on a one-woman show about the house she grew up in Bristol Tennessee, and how living with tragic events affected the family in their daily lives. Take your meals with the dying, whether they’re hungry or not Be what the dying need you to be Behave as if the dying still care about manners Study your mom so one day you can do The Mama Dance Before you […]
Merry Christmas, Dad!
December 25, 2014
I sat in my car. I wasn’t sure I had the nerve to do it. I looked at the letter I held in my hand. Would this work? Could I possibly find peace after 26 years, merely by reading a letter aloud? It was a suggestion by a friend. Write your dad a letter and tell him the good and the bad. Talk to him, and pray for healing and forgiveness. I took out the letter and looked at it. I read it aloud. Funny, I didn’t feel any different. I was very nervous; afraid someone might see me and […]
A Good Goodbye: Gail Rubin
December 18, 2014
Gail Rubin, CT, is author and host of the award-winning book and television series A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die. She’s a Certified Thanatologist, that’s a death educator, a Certified Funeral Celebrant and a speaker who uses humor and films to get conversations started on death, dying, advance directives and funeral planning. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/audio.opentohope.com/OpenToHope_GailRubin.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Improv artist Marc Herson on Vision Quests for Mourners
November 28, 2014
Fasting on water, chanting his heart out and beating a drum for 4 solitary days in a pine valley opened a door to the afterlife for Marc Hershon. This and more when memory artist, Nancy Gershman talks with Hershon about his vision quest – a Renaissance man who performs and teaches improv; hosts and produces Succotash, the Comedy Podcast; draws an award-winning, weekly cartoon for California’s Half Moon Bay Review and names ubiquitous products (like Swiffer, Dasani and BlackBerry) as Creative Director for Lexicon Branding. The show must go on (then off) Conversations with fathers, now dead, are less awkward No one calls you by your given name in the afterlife Beating a drum goes well with confessing as loud as you can Make friends […]
