Cross-Posting: For a happier, healthier life, you have to have hope!

This piece was originally written by Lois Hall, MS for the River Cities Tribune & Register, a local newspaper from Meigs County, Ohio from July 10th, 2026. You can find the original article here.

        I’ve worked in the field of Public Health for nearly 50 years. I’ve been a Grief Recovery Method Specialist for nearly 30 of those years. Makes me sound old - but in reality - I think both have made me wiser! I’ve written brochures, given talks, managed programs and staff, and written grant applications and progress reports. All in the effort to help make Ohioans healthier from everything from Reye’s Syndrome, to Legionnaire’s Disease to HIV/AIDS to cancer. Public Health professionals spend their time, effort and money doing just that at the federal, state and local levels. I’ve been asked to write this article on behalf of the Meigs County Health Department, after hearing one of those “talks” earlier this spring. 

        I have also been a lifelong believer in HOPE. It wasn’t until recently though that I began sharing that I believe the number one deterrent to good health and well-being isn’t really tobacco, drugs, alcohol, diet or lack of exercise or the host of other things Public Health preaches… it’s a lack of HOPE. This is a lack of personal hope - but also a lack of community-wide hope. So, where’s the pamphlet or program for that??? 

        Let me explain the connection between grief, hope and true health. In my grief work we define grief as the “normal and natural response to change or loss of any kind, or the change in or end of a familiar pattern of behavior.” It’s so much more than death - though that’s what most people think of when they think of grief. But doesn’t death result in a lot of other changes too? Maybe long-term partnerships, maybe housing, maybe income, maybe role definition - like having been the parent or the caregiver. And don’t retirement, or pregnancy, or graduation, or moving or job loss or economic challenges, or a host of many other things also produce change? And while some of those bring us joy - they all also bring elements of change - grief. 

        And now add in the corporate or community changes/griefs that we experience - changes in our economy, jobs changing, health changing, schools, churches, hospitals or businesses closing, just listen to the news tonight with your “change” ears on - and note all the changes in your community, our nation, our world. They also weigh us down. And typically, we’re not taught how to manage or navigate all of that - on a personal, community-wide or national or global level! It all seems so hopeless most days. 

        Yet, our bodies feel these changes - this grief - and the body knows it needs to do something to counteract these feelings, so society has taught us some short-term ways of doing that. In the Grief Recovery Method, we call those things Short-Term Energy Relieving Behaviors. These include things like using tobacco, drugs, alcohol, food or work - or numerous other things - to distract us or to numb us from the emotional energy of all of those changes. And the truth is - they work! Short term. And then we need more of them, and more often and they become addictions. And then we get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and the next thing you know - it all just feels so hopeless. And we feel hopeless as individuals and then, as whole communities. Things just aren’t the way we’d hoped, dreamed or expected they should be… and once we give up hope of things getting better… they don’t get better. In fact, most times, it gets worse. 

        Health departments, healthcare professionals, hospitals - they all work hard to get us healthy - they have addiction programs, drug treatment programs, obesity programs, exercise programs, and… various therapies and medications. But unless we address the root of our poor health - unless we get to the “heart of the matter” - none of those other strategies will work. We’ve got to have hope that things CAN be better - that we CAN learn how to manage our changes - losses - griefs - in healthier ways. And that’s where addressing grief comes in. The clue is right there in the word - our “dis-ease” causes our disease! We’ve got to learn healthier ways of managing or navigating these changes. 

        In Ohio, health departments are required to develop community health improvement plans - with goals and objectives addressing the major health risk factors in their communities. And, some are beginning to see the connection between this grief in individuals and communities and are beginning to identify strategies to improve HOPE - so that in the end, people, AND whole communities will be both more hopeful and healthier! Kudos to the Meigs County Health Department and Get Healthy Meigs for being among the forerunners in this endeavor. It won’t be easy - it never is. We didn’t lose our hope overnight - and so we won’t get it all back overnight either. But the first, most important step on the journey is to recognize that it’s restoring HOPE that will make us truly healthy, as individuals and as entire communities. No matter what - do not give up! There is still HOPE!