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In addition to providing real-life support meetings and conferences, educational materials, and an online support network and resource center, TCF sponsors a beautiful concept -- The Compassionate Friends Annual Worldwide Candle Lighting, a wave of light around the world in the form of candles illuminating the hour of 7:00 PM in every timezone. An independent Internet event originally held in 1996, TCF began nurturing the commemoration in 1997 and The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting was the result.
As people who had experienced miscarriage, my husband and I took part in the candlelighting event for the first time last year. Of all the things we have done to soothe our souls over our four losses (planting rose bushes and other plants, creating little indoor shrines with figurines, naming the children), this very simple act of lighting a candle, in our own home, for each baby was perhaps the most powerful. I think that the effect is heightened by knowing that there are others doing the very same thing to honor their children around the world. It gives the little lost lives a larger meaning than just a place in my backyard.
This year, the commemoration was held on Sunday, December 12th beginning at 7p.m. Check back for information on our virtual candle lighting to be held in our chat room on the date of the 2005 observance.
© Tracy Morris
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