Open to Hope

Head and Heart: Like the Acorn and the Oak Tree

Friday, February 9, 2018

Grasping a concept or idea intellectually is one thing: having it become a real part of who you are is something different. I once heard it said, “Scripture contains the word of God in the way that the acorn contains the oak tree. It is all there, but its presence is made known to us little by little.” Living at God’s speed means accepting that my understanding of the way God works in my life will come to me in God’s time.  Sometimes the proverbial light bulb goes on in our heads and we learn something instantly, but most of the time real learning […]

Open to Hope

Becoming Aware of God’s Presence

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

“We have what we seek. We don’t have to rush after it. It was there all the time. If we give it time it will make itself known to us.” – Thomas Merton As a young child I remember a picture hanging on the wall in my grandfather’s house. It showed Jesus standing outside a door and patiently knocking upon it. This picture is often accompanied by a caption taken from Sacred Scripture, “Behold I stand at the door and knock…” (Revelation 3:20).  I realized at that time that the closed door represented the door to my life, the door to my heart. I knew […]

Special Topics

Living in the In-Between Time

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

There is a classic psychological question you may be familiar with that is related to our ability to wait on God:  ”If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?” When we pray the words of the Serenity Prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” we present God with three requests: 1) The first request is for the ability to accept the things that we cannot change. Here we […]

Death of a Child, Your Grief

Lent as a Verb, Not a Noun

Friday, February 20, 2015

In Christendom Lent, from the Latin for “forty,” is the annual season of fasting and penitence for 40 weekdays before Easter. But, as someone in mourning, I’m having a hard time thinking about giving up chocolate or staying off Facebook as anything as penitential as the sudden death of our son Mack, 8, on New Year’s Eve 2012. The standard preparation for Lent asks us to step away from our busy lives and consider our mortality: for you were made from dust, and to dust you will return. Until Mack died, Lent was a kind of intrusion into my busy […]

Death of a Child, Your Grief

Ask, Seek, and Knock Loudly on God’s Door

Friday, October 10, 2014

On the snowy night of December 30, 2012, I was reflecting on the past year in my journal. I have journaled regularly since 1990, when I lived in the bush in West Africa and had little else to occupy myself during the silent nights in my mud brick house. I wrestled for a while as to whom I was addressing my journal, but eventually I realized I was sharing my thoughts and fears with God. So, I have written thousands of “Dear Lord” entries over the years. Curled up in front of the fire after the kids were asleep, I […]

Death of a Child

Another School Year Begins

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

We hosted a college graduation party at our house for our nephew last weekend. My husband’s family was here, including our 95-year-old great-grandmother, all four grandparents in various levels of physical health. This made five generations gathered to hear my brother-in-law speak of his three children, who have now all graduated from college, and we toasted their accomplishments. I sat on the porch with my beautiful daughter Izzy, 16, listening to the toasts and thinking that it won’t be too long before she is graduating high school and heading to college. But our sweet Mack, who died suddenly of sepsis […]

Bereavement, Death of a Child, Your Grief

Wanted: Soul Sister in Grief

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

I have secretly been looking for a place to post a want-ad for a partner in grief.  In my small hometown, I don’t know anyone who has lost a child.  There is a support group about 30 minutes away but despite my efforts to connect with any of these women outside of the group that has not yet happened. It has been four years since I lost my sweet boy.  Four years and not one connection.  To say I am lonely would be incorrect.  I have an amazing husband and a house full of children.  I have a handful of […]

Death of a Child, Your Grief

Colors of the Spirit: We Are All One in Grief

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Embracing Sacred Law From July 11, 2014 through July 13,2014, I attended the 37th National Conference of The Compassionate Friends in Chicago, Illinois.I have been attending and presenting workshops for this great organization whose focus is to provide hope and support to families who have experienced the death of a child, since 2008. I always look forward to meeting old friends, making new ones ,and for the opportunity to share  teachings that I have discovered since the last conference. Since my daughter Jeannine’s death at age 18 of cancer, on 3/1/03, I have undergone a metamorphosis from an uncertain, pain […]

Open to Hope

My Father’s Final Gift

Saturday, June 14, 2014

I would like to share my father’s final gift with you – a gift he unknowingly gave to me in death.  I received this most precious gift on a beautiful sunny day in April.  I’ll never forget the sky, it was so blue and the air was so crisp – God had created a simply gorgeous Spring day.  It was hard for me to imagine that anyone (much less my father) could be dying on such a glorious, beautiful day… I remember I didn’t want to go to the hospital to visit my father on that beautiful day. I knew I […]

Death of a Child

A Day of Rebirth

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

I originally wrote this piece for my blog on March 1, 2014, my daughter Jeannine’s 11th angelversary date.  Since year nine of my life as a parent who has experienced the death of a child, I have written about the teachings I have discovered when spending time with Jeannine, on her angelversary date. I decided that I wanted to share my experience again as we approach spring, a time of both rebirth and renewal. I have discovered clarity in ritual and ceremony, while recognizing that Jeannine still exists, but in a different form of energy. I still have occasional yearnings […]