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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After Mother-Loss, Daughter Struggles with Guilt about Father
June 16, 2011
“I told him he had to get out. It would have been selfish of me to let him stay there,” my friend Claire said about her youngest son, A.J. Claire lost her husband almost a decade ago, after which her 26-year-old son moved home. A.J. promised his father he would take care of his mother, but Claire did not feel that included cohabitation. Her word choice stunned me. As the child of a widowed parent, I sometimes forget the hierarchical positioning of my own family patriarch. I spent a considerable amount of time feeling guilty about being in Washington, D.C. […]
My Teddy Bear Dad
June 12, 2011
Growing up, I was a little afraid of my dad. He had a bark that was loud and, I thought, fearsome. But as I grew older, I came to realize that he was just a big olʼ teddy bear inside. Twelve years ago, Dadʼs passing inspired me to start a company called Carrie Bears. My mom, in her grief, had said, “What do I do with all his clothes?” I started by making teddy bears–Carrie Bears–out of his clothes for my siblings. And that is where it all began. As Fatherʼs Day approaches, I think of my dad and the […]
Walking Backwards into the Future
May 13, 2011
Mistakes haunt us. Regrets torment us. Grief – for any loss – rips at us. We pick at these wounds hoping for miraculous healing. We study them, trying to figure out what went wrong. We relive them in our minds over and over looking for what we could have done differently. We waste years staring at our past, walking backwards into the future. Let me boil down the essence of 10,000 self-help books on the market right now: turn around, put your back to the past and look at the path ahead. No lie: it’s the hardest thing to do, […]
The Gift of Forgiveness for Mother’s and Father’s Day
May 8, 2011
For many, the Mother’s and Father’s Day tradition is a welcome way to celebrate the meaningful lessons your parents taught you by deed or example. For those who are estranged from parents, this can be a time of tension and unhappiness. It can also hinder the grief process when someone harbors unresolved issues with someone they have lost. Facilitating Love and Forgiveness Conversations for the Fetzer Institute, I saw time and again the far-reaching impact of the ability, or inability, to forgive. Fred Luskin, PhD, author of Forgive for Love, states, “If you are in a relationship that needs healing, the […]
Creating a Community of Grievers
May 7, 2011
It’s not what you say; it’s what you do. Every now and then, I smack my head for saying the dumbest thing. ”I should have said this not that,” I exult. Since I write http://mamaquest.org, a blog about losing my mother, and run http://trauma2art.com, a site about creative expression after loss, I should know exactly what to say when someone tells me about their experience in grieving. I don’t actually. We all experience something different even if the themes are the same. I have some standard phrases that I use when someone first loses a loved one. As a general […]
Pat Schwiebert: Mothers and Loss
May 5, 2011
Pat Schwiebert, a registered Nurse has been working in the area of bereavement for over 25 years. Her teachers have been ordinary persons who were grieving the loss of special people in their lives and who taught her as she walked along side them in their sorrow. Pat shares a hospice ministry with her husband John and others in a large https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/www.opentohope.com/files/2011/04/Pat-Schwiebert_01.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Grieving and Resilience
May 5, 2011
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about a book by a Columbia psychology professor, George Bonnano, called The Other Side of Sadness (2009). This book received many endorsements from the academic community claiming revolutionary thinking about how the bereaved experience and adapt to the loss of a loved one. His main point is that the majority of those who grieve are able to handle their loss on their own, without professional counseling, because human beings are “naturally resilient.” “The good news,” he writes, “is that for most of us, grief is not overwhelming or unending.” Since [loss] “is a […]
Sudden Death vs. Anticipated Loss: Two Different Journeys
May 1, 2011
Experience: The stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge Having experienced grief previously, I assumed I would be able to move on through life after the death of my mother in November 2010. I thought myself well prepared since I had spent the last ten years creating my new life after my son passed from injuries he sustained in an automobile accident. While caring for my mother, I convinced myself that becoming knowledgeable about Alzheimer’s disease, its progress, symptoms and behaviors would arm me with the necessities to flow through […]
