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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Choosing to be Happy
May 5, 2013
Life is full of choices. What we don’t always understand is that happiness is a choice, too. It seems strange that being happy would be a choice, but that is one of the things I learned when I was caught up in grief. As chance would have it, I went down to Florida to visit some good friends about eight months after my husband’s sudden death. He and I had planned to do that, so I got up my courage and went by myself. It was in the early part of the year, and while I was there, they decided […]
Washing the Bones: Grieving a Spouse-Loss
May 3, 2013
When I was first widowed, my overriding thought was that I couldn’t survive it, and I did not wish to. But the thought that I couldn’t go on without him was simply not true: it felt true, but it wasn’t. I had gone on without Andrew, to my dismay and surprise. Losing him hurt beyond any sort of pain I had ever felt or could have imagined. I hated it, but it did not end my life; it ended that particular chapter of my life, a chapter I liked a great deal, a chapter I thought would be the whole […]
Reflections on Letting Go
April 24, 2013
Grief creeps into our lives in so many ways. Loved ones die, friends or family move away, children grow up and leave home, jobs change, pets die, a treasured possession becomes damaged or lost. And these are just some of the things we must cope with as we live our daily lives. One of the reasons such changes are so difficult is because they are links to the past, to what we know and are comfortable with. Being creatures who prefer comfort, we do not readily welcome change. The past – the “known” – has become our friend. I have […]
Searching for Meaning in Life
April 23, 2013
Alone after the sudden death of my 54 year-old husband, I struggled to figure out who I was and where I was headed in life. Trying to find the “Diane” within, I reconnected with hobbies of the past and at the same time, tried new adventures. The following excerpt from my memoir, Twenty-Eight Snow Angels: A Widow’s Story of Love, Loss and Renewal, is about my first kayaking experience on Lake Superior at the Bluefin Bay Resort in Tofte, Minnesota in 2005. Little did I know that paddling along the “Big Lake” would trigger a turning point in my grief […]
Don’t Turn the Deceased into Perfect Person
April 20, 2013
After you lose someone you love very much, it is only natural to think about that person in a very positive way. But sometimes we can go too far, and if we do, we end up with unrealistic memories. I know my husband, Sid, was very bothered when a friend of his died, and his wife promptly turned him into a saint. Sid scolded me about that, saying, “When I go, don’t turn me into some super guy!” Of course to me, he was a super guy. But after he died, I tried to remember those words. We are all […]
Feeding the Soul through Solitude
April 17, 2013
In my previous article, we talked about how, over time, loneliness can change into solitude. When we are in the throes of grief, solitude may not feel very comforting, and yet it is through solitude that we can find the peace – and yes, the joy – we are seeking. Solitude opens the door to a deeper, more complete way of being. As we befriend that quiet inner space, we become more at home with ourselves and find inner strengths we may not have known were there. And so it is that we find another way of being where we […]
Suicide Leaves Mark on Those Left Behind
April 15, 2013
To the casual observer, Mindy McCready’s recent suicide death reads like a bad country song. To those of us who have lived through some of what she experienced or are witness to in our work, it reads more like a roadmap to sure death. Last fall, in an interview, McCready seemed full of hope, gaining the upper hand in legal maneuverings to maintain custody of her older son. The bottom seemed to drop out when her fiancé and father of her 9-month-old son died by an apparent suicide last month on the porch of the home they shared in Arkansas. […]
From ‘the Darkest Place,’ Discovery
April 13, 2013
I think one of the strangest places that my journey of widowhood has taken me is this place of discovery. Discovery brought forth by the need to survive. This new place is definitely earned. I struggled to survive for so many years. I searched my being for a way to get through each minute, each breath when Dave died. At 39 years old, I was a widow. I was a mom with two little boys looking to me for guidance through this unknown journey of grief. I didn’t have a clue how to survive. It was all trial and error. […]
Kyle Shelton: Dating and Remarriage After Spouse Loss
April 4, 2013
Kyle Shelton was born in Alabama and has lived in northeast or central Alabama most of his life. Kyle’s wife Kathy died suddenly due to a drug interaction. As a male in grief he struggled to express his emotions and to connect with others while dealing with parenting and remarriage. Kyle is a writer for Open to Hope and teaches ninth grade. https://media.blubrry.com/open_to_hope_1/audio.opentohope.com/2013/04/Kyle-Shelton.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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