RICHMOND, Va. -- The death of a child can be one of the toughest ordeals that a parent can experience in life.
Associate Pastor Mary Kay Collins at First Presbyterian Church in Richmond said many in her congregation know that heartache firsthand.
“In our membership, I can count at least 20 families who have had a child die and several in the last couple of years,” Pastor Collins recalled. “We want to offer a space for them to come that safe with others who have some sense of what they have been through.”
First Presbyterian on Cary Street Road will host “Silent Night: A Community Service for Grieving Parents” at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The event will allow participants to light candles, offer prayers, hear music, and shine light into the darkness of their grief for their children of any age who passed.
“There's not much that you can say to make sense of the death of a child and so we try not to offer platitudes or easy answers but rather to be there in the difficulty of that moment with them,” said Associate Pastor Josh Andrzejewski.
St. Stephens Episcopal in Richmond hosted the community service for many years. This year, Pastors Collins and Andrzejewski are continuing the tradition.
Mental health care is a priority for their church. By age 60, nine percent of Americans have experienced the death of a child, according to evermore.org.
“One of the important things to know about grief is that when we share it with one another, it can be lessened,” Andrzejewski stated. “So coming together to share those feelings and to just acknowledge how hard it is — is one of the things that we feel so important for families.”
Tuesday’s service will also be live streamed on the church’s website.
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