Local Bereaved Parents group plans candle-lighting ceremony

“It’s very meaningful,” Alfred said. “In the past, we have always gone to a center part of the room, usually with a small Christmas tree. The candles are there, and you light the candle and say the child’s name and anything else about them. Sometimes you bring a picture and show your child’s picture.

“It’s a way of sharing your child with the group.”

Dan Alfred was 21 years old when he died in 1985, Alfred said, and after about a year of grieving privately, she helped form a group called Compassionate Friends, which has evolved into the Bereaved Parents.

Going to the meetings has helped her deal with her grief, she added.

“It’s an outlet to discuss your feelings with people who understand the loss,” Alfred said. “I might talk with someone who has never lost a child, and they say, ‘Yes, I know how you feel, I lost my aunt,’ or someone like that. It’s a loss, but it’s not the same kind of loss as when you lose your child.”

Melanie Groves and her husband, Matthew, now lead the group. They lost their 11 1/2-year-old son, Thomas, in January 2011 to pneumonia and H1N1 influenza.

“It really does help,” Melanie Groves said of the meetings. “It lets parents see that they are not alone and that their child is well represented, even after death.”

Melanie Groves attended a national meeting in Tampa, Fla., two years ago and participated in a candle-lighting ceremony.

At first she felt apprehensive about attending the meeting, but she ended up feeling right at home.

“It was comforting, moving and soothing, and we fit right in,” she said. “It was fitting the pieces of a puzzle together, being with other parents who were grieving as well. And to have that candle-lighting ceremony at the end, it was moving beyond words.”

In addition to participants bringing a photo of their child to show during the ceremony, they also can email a photo so Matthew Groves can use it in a slide show he is compiling to display during the meeting.

The email address is north.centralwv.bp@gmail.com. Or Melanie and Matthew Groves can be contacted by phone at (304) 842-1916.

“It represents all the children in all their glory,” Melanie Groves added. “We do this as a symbol of their life and love.”

Lifestyles Editor Mary Wade Burnside can be reached at (304) 626-1438 or by email at mwburnside@exponent-telegram.com