A room filled with flickering candles, food and photographs of young faces became a place of remembrance, resilience and advocacy as families gathered to mark the 10-year anniversary of the creation of the peer support group Surviving Our Ultimate Loss (S.O.U.L.) at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Bethesda on Sunday afternoon.
The organization—founded by mothers whose children have died from substance use disorder and overdose —held a commemoration ceremony honoring the lives of those lost and the community that has formed in their memory.
“Ten years ago, S.O.U.L. began with a small group of mothers searching for something that didn’t yet exist,” said Roxanne Wood, one of the group’s founding members, addressing nearly 200 attendees. “A place where we could speak our children’s names, where our grief would not be met with silence.”…