My Year of ‘Solitary Firsts’ As I write this article, 2-1/2 years after my husband Marty’s death, I am overwhelmed with surprise that so much time has passed. Memories of that first year are wrapped in a surreal haze and when vivid images do surface, the fog lifts and reveals my year of solitary firsts. February 11, 2009, marked the […]
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No ‘Shoulds’ in Grieving a Spouse’s Death On my commute to work this morning (by which I mean my walk down to my basement office), I started wondering about something that seems to be a common theme with all of us widows: The ability to overcome what other people think of us. When our spouses die, the surrounding public seems […]
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The First Anniversary after a Husband Dies Just like nothing prepares you for the death of a loved one, there is no preparation for the first anniversary of a death. The anticipation of the date can make you just as emotional as the death itself. For all the positive steps forward you have taken over the year, the anniversary can […]
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First Anniversary of the Death About three weeks after a funeral, most people stop checking on you. The offerings become a smattering of well wishes and hopes you’re doing “better”. However, you might not be “better”. The anniversary of a loved one’s passing, particularly the first, sometimes is the toughest. Many books say that one year is “long enough” to […]
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Loving a Pet From as early on as I can remember, I have always connected with animals. My first pet was an orphaned lamb, Mary. I was obsessed with horses and fascinated with butterflies, frogs and caterpillars – any creatures that found their way into my world. Loving animals inevitably means at some point you have to say goodbye. Now, […]
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Grieving over Libby A few months after Libby died, I sat for an interview with a local newspaper to talk about her death, her impact on the people she knew, and the charity her father and I created in her honor. If you’ll allow a mom to gush about her kid for a moment, Libby was no ordinary ten-year-old. Not […]
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Tell Your Grief Story Telling your grief story is an insanely powerful way to process your emotions. At first, friends and family want to hear the story, and we tell it in a haze, barely registering what we’re saying. Then, we might find ourselves telling the same story for the tenth time. But somehow something clicks and sinks in, and […]
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May 16, 2024, would have been my son Thomas’s twenty-second birthday. But instead of candles on a chocolate cake that my wife Elin has baked – Thomas’s favorite – we have candles like the one pictured above scattered throughout our home. I have one on the nightstand next to my bed. I light it each night before I surrender to […]
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Spontaneous Moments of Grief Soon after my father died, I was in a restaurant with a good friend and our daughters. We were on a trip that we had planned months before, and I hadn’t wanted to cancel it because it meant a lot to me to do something special over a school break with my child, especially after I’d […]
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Dating During Widowhood We often hear widows and widowers say, “I had such a wonderful partner that I could never be with another person.” Friends and family members who are also missing this departed partner often see this outlook as a badge of honor and courage, and so they encourage it. Obviously, though, these attitudes focus on the past, and […]
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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.
