IMPORTANT MEETING DATES:

First Thursday Meeting:

The first Thursday of the month meeting will remain a Zoom meeting only. Chapter leader, Susan Banks, will send you a link so that you can join the meeting remotely. If you have questions or need the link, please call Susan at 847-366-9375. (This meeting is normally held at Holy Family Catholic Church, Waukegan.)

Espanol/Ingles: Mirtha Vidal
847-293-1658 mirthavidal1213@yahoo.com
Mirtha esta distonible por telefono ocorreo electronico.

Third Thursday Meeting:

The third Thursday of the month meeting will remain as an in-person only meeting. The location is at the Millburn Congregational Church 19073 West Old Town Court, Lake Villa, IL 60046, 7:00pm – 8:30pm. Park in the parking lot behind the church, enter through the double glass doors. Doors are opened at 6:30 pm. You may bring your own refreshments. We do have a Keurig, coffee pods and tea bags, single packaged snacks, and bottled water.

Susan Banks, Chapter Leader
847-366-9375
lanwesmar@comcast.net

Susan serves in honor and memory
of her son, Westley.


 

Welcome to Our Website

When a child dies, at any age, the family suffers intense pain and may feel hopeless and isolated. The Compassionate Friends provides highly personal comfort, hope, and support to every family experiencing the death of a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, or a grandchild, and helps others better assist the grieving family.

 

We Need Not Walk Alone

The Compassionate Friends (TCF) is a national, self-help organization for families that have experienced the death of a child, regardless of the age of the child or the cause of death. We offer support, understanding, and hope to bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents who are grieving , and provide a safe and caring environment for listening and sharing.

It takes great courage to attend a first meeting, but we have a support system that only other bereaved families can offer.  As seasoned grievers reach out to the newly bereaved, energy that has been directed inward begins to flow outward and both are helped to heal.  Our vision is that everyone who needs us will find us and everyone who finds us will be helped.

 

"The links of life are broken but the links of love and longing never break. Grief only becomes a tolerable and creative experience when Love enables it to be shared with someone who really understands."
 
wcdRev. Simon Stephens, Founder - The Compassionate Friends

 

Credo

We need not walk alone. We are The Compassionate Friends. We reach out to each other with love, with understanding and with hope. Our children have died at all ages and from many different causes, but our love for our children unites us. Your pain becomes my pain just as your hope becomes my hope. We come together from all walks of life, from many different circumstances. We are a unique family because we represent many races and creeds. We are young, and we are old. Some of us are far along in our grief, but others still feel a grief so fresh and so intensely painful that we feel helpless and see no hope. Some of us have found our faith to be a source for strength; some of us are struggling to find answers. Some of us are angry, filled with guilt or in a deep depression; others radiate an inner peace. But whatever pain we bring to this gathering of The Compassionate Friends, it is pain we will share just as we share with each other our love for our children. We are all seeking and struggling to build a future for ourselves, but we are committed to building that future together as we reach out to each other in love and share the pain as well as the joy, share the anger as well as the peace, share the faith as well as the doubts and help each other grieve as well as to grow.