Compassionate Friends hosting global candle lighting rites

In an annual global rite for grieving families, the Compassionate Friends of Saipan will be hosting a candle lighting ceremony on Dec. 13 as part of the 19th Annual Worldwide Candle Lighting Service to remember loved ones who have passed away.

According to the group’s mission, “When a child dies, at any age, the family suffers intense pain and may feel hopeless and isolated. The Compassionate Friends provides highly personal comfort, hope, and support to every family experiencing the death of a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, or a grandchild, and helps others better assist the grieving family.”

The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting unites family and friends around the globe in lighting candles for one hour to honor the memories of the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and grandchildren who passed away too soon. Preparations will begin at 6:45pm on Dec. 13 at Garapan Central Park. Candle lighting begins worldwide at 7pm.

The TCF will be planning a slideshow presentation in memory of loved ones and are inviting the community to submit one or two photos by Dec. 5 to nelsonkrum@msn.com.

Attendees of the service are also welcome to bring a framed photo or memento for display during the service. Families or attendees will also have the opportunity to light and hold their own candle in remembrance.

Music, reading, and light refreshments will be served following the ceremony.

The Compassionate Friends was founded over 40 years ago when a chaplain at the Warwickshire Hospital in England brought together two sets of grieving parents and realized that the support they gave each other was better than anything he, as a chaplain, could ever say or provide. Meeting around a kitchen table, the Lawleys and the Hendersons were joined by a bereaved mother and the chaplain, Simon Stephens, and The Society of the Compassionate Friends was born. The Compassionate Friends was established in the United States and incorporated in1978 in Illinois.

Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting in the globe, the 19th Annual Worldwide Candle Lighting, a gift to the bereavement community from The Compassionate Friends, creates a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone. TCF’s WWCL started in the United States in 1997 as a small Internet observance, but has since swelled in numbers as word has spread throughout the world of the remembrance. Hundreds of formal candle lighting events are held and thousands of informal candle lightings are conducted in homes as families gather in quiet remembrance of children who have died, but will never be forgotten.

The Compassionate Friends and allied organizations are joined by local bereavement groups, churches, funeral homes, hospitals, hospices, children’s gardens, schools, cemeteries, and community centers. Services have ranged in size from just a few people to nearly a thousand. Today about 660 chapters serving all 50 states plus Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, and Saipan offer friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, siblings, grandparents, and other family members during the natural grieving process after a child has died.

For more information, contact Jill Derickson at 989-9821 or email jilld@pticom.com or Donna Krum at 783-1900 or email donnakrum@gmail.com.