The Lonely Year for Widows After so many losses in one year, loneliness was personal for me. We’d had Golden Retrievers for years, and I missed them. One dog was named Sally and the other was named Max. I longed to have a pet again, but according to retirement community rules, I could only have fish. In my mind, fish […]
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A Christmas Promise On a long-ago Christmas Eve, I made my last visit to a patient as her hospice chaplain. I was honoring a promise made weeks before. While a December storm spit rain, and clouds played hide-and-seek with the stars, I held the hand of a dying woman. In the surrounding neighborhood, holiday lights flickered, inflatable Santas and snowmen […]
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The First Christmas Stocking The first Christmas stocking I ever made was in 1960. I was 10 years old and living in Walnut Creek, California with my parents, Ted and Lillian. We didn’t have too many Christmas rituals, no church services or Advent candles. There was a china nativity set. It was small, but had all the important characters. We […]
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Holiday Pain Many people love the first crisp, nip of fall in the air. To those who are grieving, it can coldly cut deep into the spirit and re-open the wound. While children are making wishes to Santa, those that are living with the pain of loss are wishing the holidays would go away. If only wishing made it so. […]
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From as far away as Australia to the British Isles, from Canada to Nigeria, the Widowers Support Network hears the cries of men who mourn the loss of their wife, their soul mates, their partners in life. They don’t ask for much, never have, never will. After all, men who mourn are expected to “get over it,” right? You know, […]
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Guilty Thoughts and Grief Guilt can be a sticky burden and a useful teacher. We need people to feel guilty when they do something wrong. People who don’t feel guilty are generally not safe, and they miss out on important lessons on what it means to be kind, faithful, and compassionate. Guilt can be a good teacher of just these […]
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Joining a Grief Support Group Joining a support group can help those who are grieving. Many support groups were available in my area, and they differed widely. Before I joined a group, I did my homework and considered the following factors. Factors in Joining a Support Group Type of group: Support groups are supposed to meet needs. They include faith-based […]
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After I’d lost several family members in a short time, the question “How are you?” always threw me off-balance. How did the person think I was after so much tragedy? Usually when someone asks this question, they expect one reply: “Fine.” I used this answer at first to end painful conversations. But I wasn’t fine, knew it, and came up […]
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Grief is a journey I know too well. I lost my husband and my mom to cancer within a few weeks of each other. But right now, I find myself experiencing grief on a whole new level, and this time in the company of a whole nation. The recent heartbreaking, terror-based, horrifying incident in Israel on October 7, where many […]
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Making Sense of Grief At first, I thought grief was an amorphous vapor that made your breathing labored and that obscured your view…temporarily. But I was wrong. Losing My Grandmother In 2016, I lost by grandma, Theresa Potts, the foundation of my human constitution. As a co-parent with my mother, she reared, disciplined, corrected, directed, encouraged and guided me. But […]
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Open to Hope is an online community offering inspirational stories of loss, hope and recovery. We believe hope is the bridge between loss and recovery.
