For many people, the Christmas season brings with it heightened pressures and emotions, but for those who have lost a child, the holiday season can be exponentially more trying. </p><p>On Sunday, a small group of people committed to showing support, solidarity and empathy to those who have lost a child participated in the 11th annual Candle Light Remembrance Program at Pacheco Park.</p><p>"The importance of it is to help those out there not feel so alone," said Judy Brehm, the main organizer of the event. "It's a time when we all come together. My husband always says that we belong to a club that none of us want to be a part of. You can be in a room with a hundred people and still be very very lonely because nobody else there knows what you've gone through, what your struggle has been. And all those people out there know that."</p><p>Brehm knows the agony of losing a child firsthand. Her son Eric was 16 years and 16 days old when he and a friend were killed in a car accident.</p><p>"The grieving process has just been really hard," Brehm said. "Christmas was especially hard, and this program is around Christmas. I thought that 'I can't give him anything anymore. I can't do anything for him. I can't buy him a present.' You go to a store and you see things ... So, this was my gift to my son."</p><p>The yearly candle lighting in Los Banos is inspired by an annual international event that is organized by a group known as Compassionate Friends. According to the Compassionate Friends Web site, their candle lighting is believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe and is intended to create a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone. </p><p>Brehm said that there is no Compassionate Friends chapter in Los Banos, so the Los Banos organizers decided to do their own lighting and have it coincide with the worldwide event. It was done outdoors at Pacheco Park.</p><p>"We only had one year where we weren't able to have it outside under the stars, where our kids could look down at us," Brehm said.</p><p>Brehm's daughter, Stacy Brehm-Saucedo emceed Sunday's remembrance program for the third-straight year. </p><p>Stacy introduced speakers and singers including Tisha Blackwood, who did a reading, Melissa Munoz, who did music, and others who read poetry and spoke openly of their experiences, some with tears in their eyes or a catch in their voices.</p><p>Midway through the ceremony, attendees were invited to come up to the front and obtain a long, tapered candle which they lit from a smaller candle that was surrounded by framed pictures of lost loved ones. As each person lit their candle they said the name of the child they were remembering into a microphone, so that the audience could also participate in remembering their loved one. Holding their candles, they took their seats again.</p><p>More than 100 people were honored and remembered. First-time attendee Lori Barrozo brought her 9-year-old son Kaena Barrozo to remember her other son Kainalu Barrozo, who passed away in 2003. </p><p>Gianni Caropreso's family came out in force. Amongst those lighting candles for him were his parents Dustin and Janelle, his cousin Abigail Pikas, and his grandparents Gary and Cathy Caropreso.</p><p>For many, one of the most touching parts of the remembrance was the PowerPoint presentation that Jacob Saucedo ran. Set to music, the presentation was projected on a large screen near the candle-lighting area and featured photos of many of the local children who have died.</p><p>"I think the part that affects people most is the pictures," said attendee Alyssa Zorra as she stared at the many flickering candles. "When they show the pictures and the actual faces and you see everybody who's been lost, it kind of puts a face to those names -- the ones you wouldn't think about."</p><p>Dessie Canfield and her husband Ralph came from Fieldbrook, Calif. to support their daughter. Dessie spoke about their grandson Eric.</p><p>"It doesn't just take tonight for us to remember our grandson," Mrs. Canfield said, who thought back about her Grandson. "He died when he was 16 in a car crash. He had been up at our house. He was there for his last birthday and when he came home, [his parents] had a car in the driveway for him for his birthday ... and it wasn't too much longer, and he was in a car wreck. It was just tragic. ... He was a cute little towhead when he was little.</p><p>"He was so special -- but then everyone here would tell you the same thing about their child or their grandchild."</p><p>For some, the feeling of the Candle Light Remembrance Program might be summed up best by the last verse of a poem that was printed on the back of the program flier. It alluded to pain and loss, but also to the hope of an eventual reuniting.</p><p>It read, "Our family chain is broken, and nothing seems the same, but as God calls us one by one the chain will link again."