Complex grief

Loss doesn’t only take away a person you love. It also takes away a part of yourself. When you first experience a loss, you might feel lost and afloat. It’s hard to remember who you are when you are trying to make sense of who you are not anymore—a caretaker, a daughter, a father, a…

Welcome to the next installment of our monthly series, Recipes for Resilience, meant to inspire you to reflect, connect, and develop tools that help you on your grief and loss journey. This month’s recipe is called When I Say “I’m Fine,” I Might Be Masking My Feelings. It’s a look at the different ways we…

“I can’t believe he did this to me. How could he leave me with this much debt? I had no idea things were this bad.”  Janet was 66 years old and a recent widow when she discovered the second mortgage her deceased husband had taken out on their home. She’d been working part-time at Walmart,…

I started my career offering bereavement services as a hospice social worker, and those days supporting my patients and their families taught me so much about what I do now. The more families I met, the more I found myself asking the same questions over and over again: When does grief begin? Where is grief…

We are excited to share our new monthly series called Recipes for Resilience, meant to inspire you to reflect, connect, and develop tools that help you on your grief and loss journey. This month’s recipe is called I Didn’t Know This Was Grief. It’s a snapshot of the range of emotions that can be part…

Going through grief and loss turns our worlds upside down. Even if our day-to-day stays mostly the same, the way we experience our lives is completely different. The familiar task of making a morning cup of coffee might become a devastating reminder of your husband’s worsening illness. The holiday tradition you used to love may…

If you’ve been following us over the last year, you know that we’ve been tackling the mental health crisis in schools with our new SEL-inspired program, GRIT™. But you may not know of all the exciting ways that GRIT™ is growing in 2024! We will be expanding our research team, piloting GRIT™ in more school…

Thousands Receive Grief Support in 2023 2023 was a successful, meaningful year for Hearts of Hope as we continued to spread hope and healing through therapeutic art practices and grief support resources, education, and counseling support.  There were many highlights this past year, and some touched the hearts of others in extraordinary ways: We created…

The room at Baxter Brewing Company in Lewiston, Maine got quiet as Diane Sarna, President of Hearts of Hope Newtown, stood to read a letter from the Newtown Ambulance and Police Departments. “Our hearts were broken when we learned of the tragic events in your community,” Diane read to the dozens of Lewiston first responders…

Hearts of Hope Newtown was thrilled to usher in the holiday season by delivering hope to three Ability Beyond group homes in Connecticut. In October, we hosted a Paint with a Purpose event to support and celebrate the residents and staff at Ability Beyond, which offers services to thousands of individuals with disabilities. Over Thanksgiving…