Cathy Perfect, Managing Editor

I received a phone call from one of our readers last week. Marge Eckman, of Weldon, wanted to remind me of a special event that Compassionate Friends holds each year.

Marge told me that she and her husband, Mel, lost their grandson, Curtis Phillip Eckman, in an ATV accident about seven years ago in Iowa. That was when they discovered The Compassionate Friends, a national non-profit organization that offers friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, grandparents and siblings. The group has no religious affiliation and there are no membership dues or fees.

Marge and Mel told me about the organization’s Worldwide Candle Lighting event, held each year on the second Sunday in December. This year it takes place on Dec. 13. Marge described how family and friends around the globe are united, in lighting candles, for one hour to honor and remember children who have died at any age from any cause.

As candles are lit at 7:00 p.m. local time, hundreds of thousands of people commemorate and honor children in a way that transcends all ethnic, cultural, religious, and political boundaries.

Believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the Worldwide Candle Lighting creates a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone. 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 special children who will always be remembered.

The Worldwide Candle Lighting started in the United States in 1997 as a small Internet observance, but as the bereavement community has embraced it, their numbers have swelled.

“It’s like huge wave of light moving around the world,” Marge said. That’s quite a visual. The Worldwide Candle Lighting gives bereaved families everywhere the opportunity to remember their child, that their light may always shine.

The mission of The Compassionate Friends is to assist families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive. The secret of their success is simple: As seasoned grievers reach out to the newly bereaved, energy that has been directed inward begins to flow outward and both are helped to heal.

Information on the Worldwide Candle Lighting and planned memorial candle lighting services is posted on the TCF website at www.compassionatefriends.org.