Loss of a Family Member

Articles

  • navigating grief substance

    Navigating Grief After Substance-Related Deaths

    Posted on January 29, 2025 - by Gloria Horsley

    The rising crisis of substance-related deaths in America has left countless families grappling with complex grief and overwhelming emotions. Through the experiences of Leslie Lagos, director of the Sun Will Rise Foundation, we gain valuable insights into the journey of healing and hope after losing a loved one to substance-related causes. A Personal Journey of Loss and Recovery Leslie Lagos brings a unique perspective to grief support, having experienced both personal recovery from substance abuse and the loss of her brother, Timmy, to an overdose in 2013. Her brother’s death on Thanksgiving marked a turning point that would lead her […]

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  • A Journey Through Suicide Recovery

    Posted on January 28, 2025 - by Gloria Horsley

    The sudden loss of a loved one to suicide creates ripples that affect families in profound ways. In a moving conversation on the Open to Hope podcast, Vanessa Francis shares her journey of healing and transformation following the unexpected loss of her husband Rick to suicide in March 2016. An Unexpected Turn Vanessa and Rick’s love story began through a matchmaker in 1994, leading to nearly 20 years of marriage and the adoption of their daughter. Rick, described by colleagues as “jovial” with a quick wit, showed no obvious signs of depression. The morning of his death began like any […]

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  • Bleak Midwinter after Loss

    Posted on January 10, 2025 - by Gail Norwood

    A bleak midwinter silently advanced and settled in, both seasonally and in my soul. Gray, dreary January days reflected my dismal mood. Like a tomb, it was cold in the house and cold in my soul. Even the garden seemed to whimper softly as I slipped back to say hello upon my return. Dark and dormant as it had ever been, I sensed a palpable dirge in the wintry woodland, descending like a cold soft rain. Retreating inside through the well-worn back door, I was struck at the sudden realization that I was the sole inhabitant of our family home. […]

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  • Finding Joy After Multiple Losses

    Posted on January 8, 2025 - by Gloria Horsley

    Dr. Nancy Saltzman’s story of survival and resilience stands as a testament to the human spirit’s capacity to endure and find joy after devastating loss. As an accomplished educator and recipient of the Milken Family Foundation Award, Saltzman faced unimaginable tragedy when she lost her husband and two sons in a small plane crash in 1995. A Foundation of Purpose Saltzman credits her ability to survive such profound loss to her upbringing and professional background. Raised in a family that emphasized making a difference in others’ lives, she carried these values into her career as an educator and school principal. […]

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  • Alone with the Memories: When Your Only Sibling Dies

    Posted on November 5, 2024 - by S. Dione Mitchell

    Halloween When I was 9 and my sister was 12, we made the bold decision to craft The Haunted House of All Ages in our 250-square-foot living room and the 10-x-3.5-foot hallway that ran down the center of our second floor flat. It would be just for our own enjoyment: for us to build, experience and deconstruct in the sweet solace of flat and of our sisterhood. And we were democratic about the whole affair: She would adorn the front room with all manner of Halloween horror for me to walk through, and I the hallway for her. So we […]

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  • Tools to Ease ‘Catastrophizing’

    Posted on November 4, 2024 - by Nalda Seidman

    Tools to Ease ‘Catastrophizing’ My husband and I are Digital Nomads who work remotely and travel, and for the most part, it is fun and interesting. In early grief, however, after I lost my 20-year-old son to suicide, I never thought I’d leave my home, much less travel around the world. Getting out of bed and feeding myself was a major triumph in the months after my loss. Aside from overwhelming grief, I had a sense of dread and foreboding. I was certain I’d lose my husband or another family member next. The world felt unsafe, and my home was […]

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  • Does It Matter That She’s Drunk? The Grief of Alcoholism

    Posted on October 28, 2024 - by S. Dione Mitchell

    She’s Drunk “Wait! What am I supposed to be doing now?” from my mother during a board game. “So you don’t like gumbo?” […from my mother to a relative for the 10th time in the last 30 minutes] While solemn remarks are being shared about a matriarch of our family, an unsolicited and loud, “And you used to beat me!”  […an untrue statement from the side of the stage in an effort to be funny, followed by uproarious laughter from her singularly.] Leaning over to pick up a Christmas gift from under the tree, down she crashed like a fallen […]

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  • light darkness hope

    Finding Light in the Darkness

    Posted on October 14, 2024 - by Gloria Horsley

    Finding Light in the Darkness: A Message of Hope and Healing In times of profound struggle and emotional turmoil, it’s easy to feel isolated and overwhelmed. However, Sue Frederick, a renowned spiritual guide and author, offers a powerful message of hope and reassurance for those experiencing what is often referred to as “the dark night of the soul.” She helps us in finding light in the darkness. The Dark Night of the Soul: Understanding Your Journey The concept of the “dark night of the soul” has its roots in spiritual and mystical traditions. It describes a period of intense spiritual […]

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  • Is Climate Grief Real?

    Posted on October 7, 2024 - by Linda Goldman

    Is Climate Grief Real? Although research on climate grief is in its infancy, researchers have begun to substantiate the impact of climate change on young people and their mental health. The U.S. government’s National Climate Assessment cited mental health concerns as a side effect of climate change, and the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement warning that climate change poses threats to “children’s mental and physical health (Pautz 2020).” Thanatologist Kriss Kevorkian has defined environmental grief as “the grief reaction stemming from the environmental loss of ecosystems by natural and man-made events (Rosenfield, 2016).” Cunsolo and Ellis define […]

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  • Re-imagining Hope After Trauma

    Posted on October 6, 2024 - by Lori Grande

    Re-imagining Hope The silent voice of trauma lies idle in the body. Years of dormancy may be followed by its unexpected impact, often on the precipice of healing.  As I fought for justice in my brother’s unsolved homicide, I knew I was losing my life. Over nineteen years, that awareness never became clearer to me than the moment I learned I had breast cancer.  My fight for justice, which ushered in the decline of my health, also initiated a creative approach to rise above the unresolved and touch the edge of hope. Engaging with Stress Stress can be a positive […]

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  • Young People Grieving Over Multiple Losses

    Posted on September 23, 2024 - by Linda Goldman

    Young People Grieving Over Multiple Losses  A “new normal” has invaded old paradigms and left kids missing a past world, uncertain of the present, and anxious of what tomorrow will bring. More than ever, adults must become role models, listen to their children’s pleas, understand the forces behind their behaviors, and care for their tender hearts yearning to be heard and respected. Perhaps the new normal is just an open door into the transformation of antiquated ways of being that have outgrown themselves The issues and grief techniques found in the previous edition of my book, Life and Loss, are […]

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  • Young People’s Grief during the Pandemic

    Posted on September 22, 2024 - by Linda Goldman

    Young People’s Grief during the Pandemic The pandemic has produced a myriad of loss issues impossible to have imagined just a few years ago. Young people cannot go to school, eat lunch in the cafeteria, play with friends, see their teachers in-person, enjoy recess, learn in a classroom, or partake in the holidays with their entire family. College students who come home for family holidays are continuously anxious about getting the virus or giving it to their parents. Sara, a college freshman explained, “I’ve had seven COVID19 tests and am doing one more before Thanksgiving. It is so stressful. I […]

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  • Self-Punishment During Grief

    Posted on September 16, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    Self-Punishment During Grief A behavior that may accompany guilt is self-punishment. This often comes from the grieving person’s need to somehow “balance the scale” of life events. When we were children, we often received some form of punishment for our misbehavior. This may be one of the ways that children form their conscience. So, even as adults, when we find ourselves in a guilt-producing situation, we may feel a need to receive punishment. We might exhibit some of the following behaviors: Saying negative things to ourselves Replaying the perceived mistake(s) Depriving ourselves of something. However, some people feel the need […]

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  • Measuring Your Guilt During Grief

    Posted on September 13, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    Measuring Your Guilt During Grief After the death of a loved one, many of us feel guilt. Some amount of guilt is normal. But how much? Answer these questions in writing to better understand your own feelings of guilt. Frequency. Are feelings of guilt always present? If not, how many times per hour (or day) do I find myself experiencing guilt feelings? Intensity. When I experience guilt feelings, how intense is the reaction? Barely noticeable Mild Moderate Somewhat intense Very intense Severe/debilitating Duration. Once the guilt feelings arise, how long, on the average, do they tend to last? Disappear in a […]

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  • How to Deal with Guilt while Grieving

    Posted on September 11, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    How to Deal with Guilt while Grieving If you are feeling guilt after the death of a loved one, you might try to play a small trick on your mind. Imagine that your loved one is going to visit you for 20 seconds. You will get to ask one simple question: “What do you have to say to me about the guilt that I’ve been carrying since your death?” Now, please imagine your loved one standing in front of you answering this question. Listen. What words do you hear? Write Their Response Next, take out a pen and paper and […]

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  • Guilt is Unique During Bereavement

    Posted on September 9, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    Guilt is Unique During Bereavement During bereavement, we may feel guilty. Guilt is different from shame, embarrassment, regret or anger. Here’s how: Shame is the result of an event that brings dishonor, disgrace, or condemnation. Death may bring feelings of shame mixed with guilt. For example, a woman whose husband is shot and killed by police during his commission of a burglary may feel ashamed of the way he died and guilty that she was not aware of his illegal activity. Shame is partly based upon our perception of what others think of us. Looking back on what she felt […]

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  • Caring for Your Spirit after a Suicide

    Posted on August 26, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    Caring for Your Spirit after a Suicide For many people, the suicide of a loved one raises agonizing spiritual or existential issues. These include many questions such as Why does suicide happen? I’ve tried to be a good person, so how could God let this happen to me? Is suicide a sin? Is my loved one in hell? What happens to a person after death? Will I ever see my loved one again? What good is my religion to me now? Who am I now? What is the purpose of my life? Why should I go on living? Suicide Challenges […]

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  • Feeling Guilty after a Suicide

    Posted on August 26, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    Feeling Guilty after a Suicide When something goes terribly wrong, human beings have a natural and powerful need to make sense of what has happened. This usually includes a need to affix blame for the bad thing that has happened. Most people, even if they are outwardly blaming someone else for the suicide, will also be privately asking themselves. “Is this my fault? Why didn’t I see this coming? Could I have done more to prevent it?” This self-blaming is very, very common after a suicide. Later on in this book, we will discuss some reasons why people tend to […]

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  • Immediately After a Suicide: Three Things to Remember

    Posted on August 26, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    As you begin to take in the reality of the loss of your loved one by suicide, there are three things to remember: Take Care of Yourself Right now, you may not feel like anything matters. You have been psychologically wounded by this death, and as with any injury, you will have to focus for a while on finding ways to cope with the pain and take care of yourself. No One Cannot Do This Alone You will have to find ways of surviving that work for you. They will not necessarily be the same methods of coping used by […]

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  • Telling Young Children of a Suicide

    Posted on August 26, 2024 - by Bob Baugher

    Telling Young Children of a Suicide Parents are often understandably concerned about how the harsh fact of a suicide in the family, particularly of a parent, will affect their children. They may wonder whether telling their children–particularly young children–the truth about the death will cause more harm than good. And if they do decide to tell their children the truth, they struggle to find the words to explain what they find very hard to understand themselves – “Why did this person take their life?” It is important to know something about the developmental processes that children experience as they grow […]

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  • Multiple Losses Can Increase Isolation

    Posted on August 20, 2024 - by Harriet Hodgson

    Multiple Losses Can Increase Isolation “We don’t see many people these days,” my husband commented. “I know,” I answered. “It’s because of our multiple losses.” After our twin grandchildren lost their parents in separate car crashes in 2007 we became their legal guardians and conservators — roles that required tremendous time and documentation. Then two more family members died. Grieving for four loved ones while raising grandchildren is the hardest thing we have ever done. Coming to terms with one death is hard, but coming to terms with four is much harder. According to Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, Director of […]

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  • Grieving the Loss of a Narcissist or Sociopath

    Posted on August 19, 2024 - by Mary Joye

    Grieving the Loss of a Narcissist As if grieving a loved one isn’t enough, it can become exponentially more complex when we lose someone in our lives that was narcissistic or sociopathic. In so many cultures we are vehemently taught not to speak ill of the dead. It is a lovely and loving custom, but what if the deceased spoke ill of you or was abusive to you in any way. Grieving the loss of a narcissist takes skill. This is a particularly difficult dynamic if the loss was a parent. You feel forced to go through the stages of […]

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  • Where Am I in my Grief Journey?

    Posted on August 12, 2024 - by Judy Lipson

    Where am I in my Grief Journey It’s hard to believe my sister Jane is gone 43 years, and in August, my sister Margie will have been gone for 34 years. In November, Jane would be sixty-five and Margie seventy. I am about to enter my challenging months, although some years harder than others, no rhyme or reason. After thirty years of suppressing my grief, I dug deep and went into heavy therapy, and honored Margie and Jane with Celebration of Sisters, an annual ice-skating fundraiser in a sport we all shared. The fundraiser is on pause, and I may […]

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  • Grief During Chronic Illness

    Posted on June 4, 2024 - by Melanie Pensak

    Grief During Chronic Illness I remember when I started to hear the word “chronic” from the mouths of people that were involved in my health. I recall the acupuncturist who asked how long my symptoms had been happening. She nodded knowingly at my answer, “Oh, so this is chronic.” I hear the doctor who seemed pleased with himself when diagnosing me with something that was simply repeating what I said I was experiencing, “Ah hah! Sounds like chronic fatigue.” I was surprised to hear this word reflected back to me. When I looked at my health deductions and expenses for […]

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  • When God Leads You to a Parent’s Deathbed

    Posted on May 27, 2024 - by Anne Peterson

    I got used to living a fatherless life, even before he died. When I thought about him, it was always followed by guilt, and then I would actually stutter. It was better to not think about him at all. And then one day my sister, Peggy called. “Hello Anne. You’ve got to come. It’s Dad. He’s dying of cancer.” Is she crazy? She knew what he had accused me of. He blamed me for our mother’s death. She knew all about that. And now she is telling me I need to come and see him? “No!” I shout. “I can’t.” […]

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  • Finding God’s Comfort Through Loss

    Posted on May 27, 2024 - by Anne Peterson

    Finding God’s Comfort Through Loss “Just go downstairs and wait for your aunt, she’ll be here soon,” my mom said. I can hardly wait. Our aunt is taking us to Kiddieland. I start going down the steps and make up a new song, using words the grown-ups were using. When you’re only 6, you don’t know what all the words mean, but you can still sing them. “Yia Yia’s dead…Yia Yia’s dead…” I see Aunt Jeanette coming up the stairs. She hears my words, rushing past me. “Wait! Aren’t we going to Kiddie…?” I call out. But she doesn’t stop […]

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  • Finding Meaning in Violent Loss

    Posted on May 13, 2024 - by Brooke Carlock

    Finding Meaning in Violent Loss When I hear about “finding meaning” in grief, I feel a knee-jerk reaction to snap back with a salty, “What possible meaning can come from the violent death of a beautiful, sweet, healthy ten-year-old girl?” What I want to assure you of is this: I am in no way suggesting that the death of your loved one had a point. Had a deeper purpose. Meaning. I don’t believe that. I believe that the death of your loved one sucks. Really, really sucks. However, I ALSO believe that your world has changed and is never going […]

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  • Toxic Positivity in Grief

    Posted on May 13, 2024 - by Brooke Carlock

    Toxic Positivity in Grief When I first started devouring information about the grieving process after Libby died, I remember immediately being turned off by the overly negative messaging on social media and in some books about grief. People who were YEARS and YEARS out from losing their loved ones were still crying daily, unable to function. In one particular Facebook group, a member mentioned that she had lost her thirty-seven-year-old son TWENTY-TWO years earlier and still cried every day. And there she was, still in a social media grief group, complaining about her life. It was the most fucking depressing […]

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  • Are You Sabotaging Your Grief Journey?

    Posted on May 13, 2024 - by Brooke Carlock

    Are You Sabotaging Your Grief Journey? This article is going to require you to be a little bit brutal with yourself. The goal of the telling the truth principle is to create a baseline so that you know where you are starting and can decide how to move forward with your grief. Of course, you want to feel better. However, I’m not going to lie–you might be holding your own growth hostage. There are four ways you might be sabotaging yourself. It’s your job to read the descriptions, reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and behavior, and be honest if any […]

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  • Grief Guilt

    Posted on May 13, 2024 - by Brooke Carlock

    Grief Guilt is about Loss of Control Guilt is, in my humble opinion, one of the most prevalent emotions during grief, and one that many grievers seem to come back to again and again. Feelings of guilt stem from an overwhelming desire to be in control of something that’s uncontrollable. Your mind isn’t yet ready to accept that your loss is real; it tries to push off the overwhelming sadness that’s coming by longing for things that can’t be changed. Some people stay stuck feeling guilt for a long time, spiraling downward into a sea of “What ifs” and “I […]

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  • Forgiveness and the Shadow of Grief

    Posted on May 6, 2024 - by Nina Norstrom

    Living Under the Shadow of Grief Now, I’m living my best life.  There was a time when I thought I could not move out of the shadow of darkness.  While grieving, some tend to live in that space for just a bit.  Others do a mere stop-by, as if pausing at a stop sign, and moving on. Then there are those like me who spent [seemingly] an eternity inside the shadow of grief. Professionals have commonly given this form of grief sufferance a label. In its purity, it is classified as complicated grief.  So, how does one define that complicated […]

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  • Writing Through the Pain of an Unsolved Homicide

    Posted on May 6, 2024 - by Lori Grande

    Writing Through the Pain of an Unsolved Homicide Sometimes a sprout can push through a crack in a sidewalk.  Likewise, openings for self-empowerment and healing can grow while living with the cement-like pain of an unsolved homicide.  By diving into our inward landscape and releasing that which grips internally, our relationship with and response to external experiences may be transformed. Writing creates a path to allow what lies beneath the surface to be harnessed in meaningful and productive ways. Why Write? Verbalizing feelings comes with risks; to reveal means to expose and make vulnerable.  Writing connects the brain to the […]

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    Widow Loses Confidence after Her Loss

    Posted on April 29, 2024 - by Kathleen A. Paris

    Confidence Lost Of the many things I could not have known about grief following the death of my husband, Matt, was how worthless and inept I would feel. It made no sense. I had been through the excruciating experience of losing him. Why did I lose my own self-confidence? I was no longer able to function professionally for a long time, a huge blow for me, a management consultant. Thus, I found myself also grieving the loss of my professional credibility. It didn’t help that I couldn’t drive at first—I was literally afraid to get behind the wheel at first […]

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  • A Nerd’s Guide to Grief

    Posted on April 22, 2024 - by Brooke Carlock

    My Life in Grief I absolutely, freaking hate the saying “Life only gives you as much as you can handle.” If that’s the case, then just call me Atlas, baby, because apparently life thinks I can handle the weight of the world on my shoulders. I’ve endured a laundry list of traumatic events that has made everyone close to me wonder exactly whom I pissed off in another life. Maybe someday I’ll write a memoir, and I’ll go into a bit more detail about some of these events later in the book, but for now I’ll give you the CliffsNotes […]

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  • Unsolved Homicides May Destabilize Survivors

    Posted on March 25, 2024 - by Lori Grande

    Unsolved Homicides Destabilize Many Lives Homicide is a complicated loss, and its reflection resides in a constant state of metamorphosis with each new experience that follows in its wake.  In order to even scratch the surface of resolution of such a loss, we are propelled to find something in the horrific event to transform, to make anew within ourselves. My brother’s unsolved homicide created a process of on-going destabilization for many years.  Over time, that destabilization turned into an awareness of what is survivable and what can be transformed, even without a resolution.  I found my greatest power in self-definition […]

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