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Open to Hope in the News!

Posted on August 13, 2019 - by Heidi Horsley

We appreciate all the talented people who make Open to Hope such a fulfilling place to work. Over the years, we have had so many people give their time, energy, and skills in assisting us with help those who are grieving and need support. Although some stay with us, others go on to pursue other passions. We love following their journeys and celebrating their successes. Recently, we received an article that appeared in The Press Sentinel about our recent Columbia University intern, Mallary McGahee. Gloria and our staff trained her and quickly had her feeling like part of our team. […]

Coping With Violent Events

Posted on August 8, 2019 - by Gloria Horsley

At lunch today, a friend asked me if we go to disaster areas when there has been a shooting. I explained to her that disasters are a time that communities come together. The immediate response can be overwhelming and outsiders can be more of a burden than help unless invited to come in as a special expert. Part of coping with the event is for the community to come together. It has been my experience that when events are planned by outsiders you end up with the out of towners presenting to and supporting one another. Families and friends tend […]

The First Thing To Do After Losing Your Baby

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Catherine McNulty

Grieving is hard. Grieving the loss of your baby is even harder. Let’s be honest, it just plain sucks. If you are reading this because it’s happened to you, know that this is one of the most challenging experiences anyone can go through. It’s traumatic and requires support. When we wake up to the reality that our baby is gone, we are forced to learn how to grieve and move forward in a completely different life, a life that doesn’t include watching our baby grow up. Let me start by saying, I am so glad that you’ve found the Open […]

How Can We Put Hope Into Action?

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Ann Schiebert

By Ann Schiebert, PsyD When I first had the honor of being invited to be a guest on Open to Hope TV, I was taken by the title “Open to Hope” and began to consider what being open to hope actually means. I started by thinking about what hope is, and what one has to do to open one’s self to hope. How do we operationalize hope? For me, hope usually applies to the idea that we want something positive to happen to others or us. We hope for a miracle recovery for someone who has been told they have […]

For Men: Helping Your Children Communicate

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Herb Knoll

As a widower, you know that you are not the only one grieving. Following the loss of your wife, pain is felt by many others, such as your wife’s parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, fellow parishioners, or friends. It can be just as intense as what you experience, and this is especially likely for children. Being the surviving parent of grieving children is yet another challenge you may face, and sometimes it is the most challenging role of all. You need to understand that role and help tend to your children’s grief while you tend to your own. It […]

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Tambre Leighn

What is the story you tell yourself about your loss? Even as a child, I understood the power of stories. Through words, I could escape into worlds far, far away. Between the covers of books, I could find characters I could relate to when I felt misunderstood. Stories gave me comfort, sparked my imagination, and made me curious about people and places outside of my own environment. Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since our early days. History is built around the word. Stories are how we pass down knowledge and information to future generations. They are […]

10 Lessons Widowhood Has Taught Me

Posted on July 31, 2019 - by Kerry Phillips

1. You Can Go On Even When You Feel Like Giving Up I honestly didn’t think I’d survive the first month of being widowed, yet here I am… 88 months later. The sad, broken part of me couldn’t see myself climbing out of the rawest stage of my grief. There were many times that I questioned why I was left here without my spouse. There were times when I literally had no tears left to cry. But somehow, through the grace of God, I survived the first year, then the next, then year 3…and on and on. It feels like […]

After Loss: Fear Can Be An Asset to Grieving Individuals

Posted on July 30, 2019 - by David Roberts

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear”– C.S. Lewis This first line in C.S. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed , inspired me to reflect on how I experienced fear during the early days of grief following my daughter Jeannine’s death. Jeannine was eighteen when she died on March 1,2003 from cancer. My fear manifested in uncertainty about my ability to live again in a world without my daughter. I feared that my other children would also die. These fears were triggered because my once predictable ,orderly and safe world was a distant memory. To […]

Facing Your Mortality Can Be a Gift

Posted on July 18, 2019 - by Harriet Hodgson

We grieve because we love. Coming to terms with personal mortality can be a form of grief. Life is precious and we don’t want it to end. I faced my mortality when I had open heart surgery a month ago. When I was about eight years old I had Scarlet Fever. The disease damaged my heart and I have lived with a heart murmur for decades. A year ago I noticed I was short of breath. Sometimes I gasped for breath–not a good sign. I had a variety of tests and, after studying the results, my doctor referred me to […]

When Deaths Accumulate

Posted on July 14, 2019 - by Judy Lipson

One life ends, and a new chapter begins. My father’s decline and ultimate death emancipated me, letting the reins loose that I held so tightly. My father and I had spoken daily. I knew the loss of my father, another colossal void in my life, would ensure a huge devastating blow to me. The clock started ticking to do the work necessary to grieve for my sisters, Margie and Jane, who had died years before. My father’s departure altered and transformed the family nucleus. How do we pick up the pieces of a broken family where the crystal had been […]