Compassionate Friends to Honor Lost Loved Ones Sunday Night

VICTORIA – The Southside Virginia Chapter of The Compassionate Friends is set to hold their 23rd Worldwide Candle Lighting Ceremony this Sunday night.

The event allows families and friends who have been affected by the loss of a child or loved one gather at the Victoria Public Library to honor and participate in the worldwide ceremony.

Family members light a table of candles in honor of their loved ones. Chapter representatives offer a variety of songs, readings and poems as part of the event. 

The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting on the second Sunday in December unites families and friends around the globe in lighting candles for one hour to honor the memories of the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and grandchildren who left too soon. As candles are lit on December 8, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. local time, hundreds of thousands of persons commemorate and honor the memory of all children gone too soon.

Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the 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 WCL 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.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Compassionate Friends Chapter #2060 group can visit www.tcfsouthside.org.

(See Pages B6-B7)