St. Regis mother finds comfort in foundation that supports families after the death of a child

“There is nothing that symbolizes loss or grief more than a mother losing a child,” David LaChapelle.

As a parent, the death of a child is your greatest fear. And if you’ve had to live that wretched reality, you know that you are now part of a club that you never wanted to join.

For Cathryn Briggs of St. Regis, that grief never truly goes away. It simply changes, it ebbs and flows. On Dec. 21, it will mark 20 years since her daughter Casey passed away.

“It feels like a lifetime ago, but at the same time I feel it like it was yesterday,” described Briggs.

Briggs journey in grieving her child is what helped her ultimately find a support group, and also create a positive event to focus on each December. The first few years following Casey’s death, Briggs found solace online.

“I would be up all night on GriefNet.org,” she said about the internet community for people dealing with grief, death, and major loss. This resource helped to an extent, but Briggs was still overwhelmed with sorrow.

“I felt like I needed to see people face to face and talk about what I was going through.”

Soon she discovered The Compassionate Friends, a foundation that supports families after the death of a child. A self-help organization offering friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved families that have experienced the death of a child. The group originated over in England nearly 50 years ago, and was established in the United States in 1978.

Today TCF has over 600 chapters serving all 50 states plus Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam, that offer friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, siblings, grandparents, and other family members during the natural grieving process after a child has died. Around the world more than 30 countries have a Compassionate Friends presence, encircling the globe with support so desperately needed when the worst has happened.

Briggs found a local Compassionate Friends chapter in Missoula, and starting joining their monthly meetings. At first, she found comfort in the company of those who were walking the same path as her.

“But after a couple of months, and whenever new people would join the group, it became harder and harder to have to go through your whole story and rehash it each time,” she recalled.

Eventually she stopped going, but not before she learned about the Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting Ceremony.

The annual event takes place on the second Sunday in December uniting family 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. Briggs shared,

“I knew I needed something like this, something good to look forward to each December to balance out the really hard day, Casey’s Angel date, on the 21.”

In memory of her daughter, Casey’s classmates and the staff at St. Regis School planted a tree in her honor on the school grounds with a plaque and benches. This became the centerpiece to what would become a community gathering spot each December. For the first several years that Briggs arranged the Worldwide Candle Lighting, she had a few friends and family with her for support.

Other years, it was just her. And some Decembers it was just too hard for her to do it at all. Some years it rained, sometimes it snowed, or was bitterly cold. She expressed,

“It really didn’t matter to me if I had to do it by myself, I was out here cause I’m doing it for Casey, for her memory.”

Each year as the holidays would approach it became a routine for Briggs to come and decorate her daughter’s tree. Christmas lights, and ornaments, and a special angel with her name on it. As time passed though, Briggs learned of more students who had passed away that had once attended St. Regis Schools. Some passed away as children, and others as young adults. Some names represented are babies of parents that graduated from the school. Briggs decided she wanted to honor the memory of each of these young lives and would include them in her Candle Lighting Ceremony each December.

“I have 12 angels hanging on the tree now,” Briggs noted. In her box of supplies she brings to each candle lighting service, she has 12 tapered candles and 12 candle holders, in case there is no one around to hold the others.

On Dec. 12, from 7-8 p.m., almost 20 people gathered around Casey’s memorial tree and stood in the softly falling snow. Over a dozen candles lighting up the darkness. This year’s ceremony was the Compassionate Friends 25th annual.

For Briggs, she’s unsure of how many times she’s trudged out into the cold winter night to do this.

She supposed, “Maybe this is the 15th time?” But this year, she had a group of smiling faces joining her to help pass the hour and hold a candle. People quietly talked, sipped hot cocoa, and listened to a playlist of Christmas music and favorite songs that Casey once listened to.

Briggs would encourage any parent who’s lost a child to come to next year’s candle lighting in December. It might be hard at first, but something she’s learned along the way is you can’t do this alone.

From the Compassionate Friends website: Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the annual Worldwide Candle Lighting (WCL), 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 and 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 and will never be forgotten.