The holidays can be a difficult time for those that have lost loved ones, especially children.
The Compassionate Friends will host a solemn service at the memorial behind the Columbia-Marion County Public Library to remember those lost.
“We will have our tree lighting at 7 p.m. on Dec. 10,” Columbia Chapter Leader Carolyn Newell said. “During the ceremony, we will be calling out the children’s names. We’re going to have music playing when we arrive and when we leave.”
Locally the ceremony has been done for the past 22 years, according to Newell. The group will also be decorating a tree at the Columbia-Marion County Public Library beginning at 2 p.m. on Nov. 28.
The Compassionate Friends website, www.compassionatefriends.org, states the organization’s mission.
“When it child dies at any age, the family suffers intense pain and may feel hopeless and isolated,” the website reads. “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 sister, or a grandchild, and helps others better assist the grieving family.”
The Compassionate Friends was founded more than 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 he, as a chaplain, could ever say or provide. Meeting around a kitchen table, the Lawleys and Hendersons were joined by a bereaved mother and the chaplain, Simon Stephens, and the Society of Compassionate Friends was born. The Compassionate Friends jumped across the ocean and was established in the United States and incorporated in 1978 in Illinois.
Today, Compassionate Friends has nearly 700 chapters serving all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico and Guam, that offer friendship, understanding and hope to bereaved parents, siblings, grandparents and other family members during the natural grieving process after a child has died. Around the world, more than 30 countries have a Compassionate Friends presence, encircling the globe with support so desperately needed when the worst has happened.
“Each year, the Global Memorial Candle Lighting takes place on the second Sunday in December,” Newell said. “We also hold regular meetings on the fourth Thursday of the month at the Columbia-Marion County Library. The meetings are held upstairs at the library.”
The Global Memorial Candle Lighting began in 1997 as a small Internet observance, but has since swelled in numbers as word has spread throughout the world of the remembrance of children that have died, but will not be forgotten. Locally, a small memorial, complete with bricks with the names of area children that have died, is located behind the Columbia-Marion County Public Library located at 900 Broad St.
“We have held a local observance for several years now,” Newell concluded. “We already have many names on the memorial.”
Pictured Above: The Compassionate Friends have the Precious Memories Walk, located behind the library. | Photo by Mark Rogers
