Grieving the deaths of children within their families, members of The Compassionate Friends (TCF) of Ottawa County, a national self-help bereavement support organization, will join hundreds of thousands of families worldwide in lighting candles at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 8 as symbolic remembrance.

The local candle lighting will be part of a special service held at 6:30 p.m. at The Knights of Columbus in Port Clinton and will feature music, readings, poems and a special speaker. Annually tens of thousands of families, united in loss, light candles for one hour during the Worldwide Candle Lighting, held the second Sunday in December.

Candles are first lit at 7 p.m., local time, just west of the International Date Line. As candles burn down in one time zone, they are lighted in the next, creating a 24-hour wave of light as the observance continues around the world.

Since 1997, the Worldwide Candle Lighting has been TCF’s gift to the bereavement community during the holiday season. This time of year can be a very trying time for those who are grieving the death of a child, no matter their age and no matter how long it has been since they died. When each candle is lit, the light of that love will shine brightly in hundreds of thousands of bereaved hearts in all countries around the globe.

With the theme “…that their light may always shine,” the Worldwide Candle Lighting has grown larger every year with formal services last year in all 50 states and Washington D.C., as well as many countries around the world. To contact The Compassionate Friends of Ottawa County, call Roseann Hickman at 419-308-4690. For more information about the national organization and locations of its chapters, call 877-969-0010 or visit TCF’s national website, www.compassionatefriends.org.