Worldwide Candle Lighting Day/ (5) Ways To Participate in WWCLD. SE1 EP9

Join us today as we share why it is important to remember your baby. We also have (5) unique ways to participate in honoring your child during the Worldwide Candle Lighting Service this year.

Will you be lighting a candle in the memory of your child gone too soon on Sunday, December 12th? The Annual Worldwide Candle Lighting Day coordinated by The Compassionate Friends, Inc. is a special time to honor a child of any age that has died.

However you choose to honor your baby, it will be special and meaningful because your child is at the heart of what you choose to do. We especially want those in our community of Pregnancy and Infant Loss to know that you are not alone, that you are loved and your baby will always be cherished.


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RESOURCES
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📅-  "Worldwide Candle Lighting Service" -The Compassionate Friends
📚- NAVIGATING THE UNKNOWN BOOK -Amie Lands


***If you are dealing with difficult feelings and emotions from the death of your baby, we encourage you to reach out and connect with other families of baby loss in the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Community. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are great resources for finding other loss moms and dads in our community to connect and share our babies with. We also encourage you to connect with us (Geoff and Toni). We are here for you and your family. You are not alone, You are loved and, Your babies will always be cherished.***


CONTACT US!
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🌷- MEET THE FOUNDERS OF OUR LITTLE SPARROWS
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(916) 572-6265

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Transcript

today we're going to talk about the worldwide candle lighting day that happens annually and five unique reasons or ways to participate in honoring your child hello we are geoff and toni brabec the founders of our little sparrows pregnancy and infant loss support and if you're listening to us for the first time whether on our audio podcast or youtube podcast you can check out more about us at www.ourlittlesparrows.org

well today we're going to talk about the world white candle lighting day yes do you want to start tell us a little bit about it yes the background sure well whoa whoa it's a hard one

worldwide this is a title worldwide candle lighting day yes it's a tongue twister it is worldwide candle lighting day was started by compassionate friends which if you're not familiar with compassionate friends they are a support group for any parents families who have lost a child at any age and there's multiple i guess chapters all over the united states and i think europe as well i'm not sure of any other countries but every year they have chosen the second sunday in december as a day of remembrance and they've called it the worldwide candle lighting day and yeah and that you know communities brief communities can come together families and friends to honor their loved one their child that has died and it's also a day to just raise awareness of the grief and surrounding the loss of a child this takes place they we do like kind of like a ceremony thing at like seven o'clock your own local time again it's creating that wave of light across the globe and it's uh similar to what we have on october 15th which is pregnancy and loss awareness day we do the wave of light this is the kind of the same thing at seven o'clock your own local time you can light a candle in memory of your child and thus creating a wave of light across the globe as we light our candles at different the different time zones specifically this event was founded by compassionate friends and they're an international yeah i mean not just national in the united states but as far as i understand they're an international yes foundation it started out small right but it's grown it's huge now as far as how many people uh get involved in it it's actually grown to become what is known as one of the largest remembrances which makes sense because it's a child of any age if you would like actually to be officially registered for the event we do have the link to that we're going to put it in our description below but a little bit more about the compassionate friends specifically compassionate friends is an organization that supports families after a child loss of any age they also offer monthly support meetings and i know because of kovid they've done the same thing as a lot of organizations you know they've got the online support which is really good why don't you tell us a little bit about why it's important in general i mean if someone wants to remember their child it's important to them for their reason some people the reason why we're bringing up this bringing this up is that some people may you know it's fresh they're just in that trauma and they're lost for words they're lost for feeling they're lost for understanding hopefully this this section that we're going to talk about the why you know why it's important to remember your child your baby will bring some clarity i think is where we're coming from we're not assuming that you don't think it's important right yeah yeah well i think it's important to remember um especially in on times like this when it's it's in inviting a community to come together it reminds you that you're not alone that there's tons of families who unfortunately who are walking a similar path in the loss of a child and it just reminds you that you are not alone grieving together with others with a similar loss can be really helpful to you in knowing that you have support you have people that just understand that just get it you don't feel like you have to explain a ton of things or you know explain why you need to grieve you know we are all there we are grieving together and we understand why and it's just you know it's needed and it says to everyone around us who may be observing us living this life of bereavement is that our the lives of our children matter and it's it matters to us that we take time to remember them and honor them to take pause and even if it's you know a child that we lost that was in early pregnancy matters just as much as you know a child that was lost in adulthood you know it's obviously it's not the same situation but but their lives matter to us and it's important that that we take time to to pause and have a remembrance well i mean sorry to interrupt but i mean that's part of why i like this event is because it does invite that right it's it's separate from the wave of light in because i think you can look at the wave of light being specifically about pregnancy and infant loss only and there's kind of a delineation there's a marker that says at a certain age maybe this isn't this doesn't feel the same as it did when like olivia's uh eight she just had her eighth birthday right and it's like well what if it was her 18th what if it was her 28th i think it's not like transition out of but i think i think the the worldwide candle lighting kind of opens your mind and says no it's okay even when she's 18 even when she turns would have turned 28 you know that kind of thing that  she's still you're she's still the baby you know that we that that we had right i that's what i love about this event i think it maybe bridges a gap of a stigma and says no it's okay and along with that too i think it says that it's okay to visibly and publicly mourn or oh totally and that's almost primary right just like the wave of light it's like i'm making uh i'm adding olivia to the facebook wave of light i'm adding olivia to the worldwide candle lighting service i'm acknowledging right yeah i agree the primary thing is the outward acknowledgement publicly publicly today's the day of tongue twisters publicly yeah that work we still acknowledge olivia yeah and that's part of why you know we have these remembrances is because it allows us the opportunity to mourn mourning is you know the outward expression of grief you know when you tend to grieve i mean you can grieve outwardly but a lot of times we tend to go inward with our grief and events like this allow us to to grieve outwardly which is to mourn i think that's also important that's also healthy for us to do that outward expression as opposed to just keeping it all in and that's what times like this can offer people another good reason or why it's important to remembers is that it's an opportunity for healing to take place it's just something that obviously being a part of a community having that support i think all of it you know you know taking pause and being able just to say their name or talk about your child with somebody offers a lot of healing to a person and i think that's why it's important to you know participate when we can in in events like this i think it's important you know that we also acknowledge that healings to some degree healing's constant right because we always have those moments where it opens a fresh wound and then that wound needs to heal too it's like you have i think in our community we call them milestones right right there's those graduated moments and then it just brings up the you know what you wish was different more better and that's grieving right right and that could be a fresh wound and then it's something that it needs to be healed again and that's why i love these events being annually and it's not just like once every five years or once every 10 or it's like they encourage you to come back right and continue doing it yeah i think it's i think it's a part of the cons the constant healing process right of our grief journey we're going to now get into the five unique ways uh that tony and i want to share with everyone i want to share with you how you can participate in remembering your baby the first thing i think is pretty a given maybe light a candle hence the name yeah when you when you're lighting the candle it's giving you a moment to take pause to reflect on the life and the memory of your child whether it was whether that child never had life outside the womb or not that life mattered regardless yes lighting the candle basic that's what the event's for and i think that's a good entry level it's like just do the little thing if you can't think of anything else or or it's too stressful or anxious uh to do anything else at the bare minimum just light the candle and let let happen naturally what happens you know yeah and each year could be progressively something else and it might turn into other areas of your life that you didn't think that you would do like celebrating the birthday of your baby like some people are nervous about that yeah or just don't know what they would do if they did do anything they don't and this stuff is i think again breaks the stigma and i think letting the candle is like entry level let's just get in a bare minimum like that candle and see where it takes you from there and simple and can do it pretty much from anywhere yeah and if even if you can't light an actual candle your iphone well you i guess you could people do that at concerts yeah you know i haven't been in a concert i was gonna say could just get a battery operated candle that suffices as well the second way you can participate is to say your child's name right tell someone about your baby share your story this can be a person-to-person interaction face-to-face or you can share your story on social media such as facebook instagram a personal blog or a vlog there's lots of different ways now that we  just share our stories now through social media that is one way and that way you get to talk about your baby freely you get to share their story and how important they were to you and  just also is creates more awareness a lot of people do post in general they're a picture of their baby yeah whether it's just you know whatever picture they want to post having to do with their baby whether it's an actual picture or not and then they'll just reflect and say missing you mommy and daddy love you very much angel baby or not angel i mean there's all different all different ways that parents approach it yeah but there's something cathartic too about outwardly speaking and not just continuing to internalize right uh what you're thinking and what you're feeling the third one we have is an act of kindness for this it could be a lot of different things but here's a couple ideas just you know paying for the person's coffee behind you paying it forward right and that could be anything donating i think supplies in general to a classroom of you know whatever age your child would have been for us it would be eight uh years old what is that fourth grade i believe that's third third third grade yeah third fourth grade right in there  and we have a parent of ours that we know uh not ours but of sharing parents of sacramento that we're also a part of and that's what she does and and it's amazing and the first time she even mentioned it i was like that's a good idea yeah yeah it's a great idea and i don't know where she got it but i'm glad that she shared about that yeah another way obviously for donating is donating your time you know going to a food bank we've talked about those uh previously or just volunteering you know your time at a a non-profit organization that's specific to pregnant uh pregnancy and infant loss would be good and then donating or child loss but kind of connected to the classroom you could also purchase toys like toys for tots you know type thing purchase toys for that age group for us it would be eight and then donating those for the holidays i think because the holidays can be the toughest man yeah they could be the toughest time of the year the birthdays the day that they were born or the day that they died right type thing for us that was the same day you know those are all those special dates and each time that date comes by it's very heavy and the holidays are no different yeah they're a part of it the fourth thing you could do is to express appreciation for those who made an impact on your child's life it could be the medical team whether it's the nurses and doctors it could be your child's teachers people who've been influenced influencers in your child's life or yeah just even family family and friends that have an impact mentors you know obviously for privacy reasons you probably wouldn't want to label hospitals and and people by by name i would imagine well i think it just depends on the situation yeah i mean and where you're also expressing your appreciation if it's sure if it's on social media then you might want to be careful about that but yeah but if it's like a you know personalized card you know you could do obviously it's a personal note or card it makes sense if you're expressing expressing this appreciation for an individual maybe that would be between you and the in the individual would be best cool yeah that makes sense i'm thrown off a little bit by that one i'll be honest the fifth and final tip that we have or idea that we have for remembering your baby is to share an organization or a resource that supported you after the loss of your baby i know for us child life was huge in the hospital yeah for remembering olivia in a lot of ways we didn't even there's things that they provided that they had in a in a memory kit that we probably wouldn't have thought about right and that was a huge relief plus i don't i don't remember how it came about but now i laid me down to sleep either they contacted them for us or they asked would we like to have pictures and then they contacted them yeah i can't remember i know that i had asked them if they had someone from now and lay me down to sleep photography and they said well i think we could call you know and see who called the organization would be available and i think they did right that's what they did because it wasn't anything that we did and i just remember saying but having those pictures are priceless yeah you know and they're well done and and it's interesting but anyhow that would be another organization for us right that we would you know we would reach out and say we love you know child life we love now i like me down to sleep yeah and that's our way of supporting them is just promoting them on social media sharing all of this you know the organizations the people that you know expressing appreciation for those that impacted your your child's life all of this i mean is obviously creating awareness but it also opens the door for other people to share about their losses too i think it just just kind of invites people into that space and maybe they haven't shared or talked about their loss or grief in a while exactly and by us sharing our own story and you know a little bit more publicly then it invites others into that space as well because maybe they need to do that for themselves and they just didn't know these are all good i mean again this is just uh toni
and i sharing that this opportunity is coming up uh in just a couple weeks i mean thanksgiving is amazing thanksgiving is this thursday and and then we basically have you know 10 days or and then this event yeah this event comes up so or a little bit longer than that but the 12th of uh december the second sunday but anyhow we're you know we can't tell you this enough uh but toni and i always want you to know when you're listening to our podcasts and when you're hearing us share about our own grief journey and our own uh our own loss with our first born and our our two miscarriages although we're sharing that a lot with you primarily we want you to know that you're not alone right we want everyone to know that they're loved no matter what and that their baby their babies all of our babies will always be cherished and will always be remembered