History: In November 1996 Mary Murphy was diagnosed with cancer. By August 1997 it was evident that the disease had progressed too far for her to expect a remission.  Mary talked with her ten-year-old son Bryan to prepare him for life without her. Together they came up with the idea of Bryan continuing their tradition of making butter cookies at Christmastime. They felt that repeating an activity they had enjoyed together for many years would comfort and support Bryan during his grieving process. With vision and courage, Mary realized that all children whose mothers had died could benefit from continuing the traditions and simple pleasures they once shared. She incorporated Mommy's Light Lives On Fund in October 1997 to help facilitate traditions for maternally grieving children, teens and their families. Mary died two and a half months later.

.
After Mary's death, Mommy's Light Board of Directors began the process of establishing and growing our organization. Policies for fulfilling tradition requests and training volunteers were established with generous guidance from the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Philadelphia.
In late 1999 we were ready to serve children. Mommy's Light began mailing outreach packages to Delaware Valley hospice bereavement coordinators regarding our services. Young people began to enter the program in May 2000. Since then we have provided over 950 Tradition Fulfillment_sm Services to more than 240 children and teens. The children and teens we serve are baking cookies and cakes, planting flowers and gardens, visiting special places such as the zoo, mall and roller rink. Most importantly, they are finding their own ways to adapt to their mothers' deaths and keeping their mothers' spirits alive. See Tradition Fulfillment_sm Services.
In 2004, Mommy's Light began developing and distributing bereavement education and outreach materials via mail and the web.  In 2006, Mommy's Light completed the production of "When a Mother Dies....Breaking Down the Walls of Silence," a 22 minute educational DVD for surviving fathers and family members.  We have mailed more tahn 36,000 copies of the Family DVD to school counselors across the United States. See the seven minute version of this Family DVD.

In 2007, Mommy's Light's Board of Directors approved national expansion of our Tradition Fulfillment_sm Services via phone, internet and mail. When Mommy's Light began more than 10 years ago, none of us knew that our founder's vision would potentially touch the lives of so many. There are more than 626,000 maternally bereaved children and teens living in the United States. This is enormous and our work is cut out for us. But our work is, by far, easier than the struggle of those we seek to help. The constant goals of Mommy's Light are to be known by every child/family whose mother is facing death or has died and to have the capacity to serve these young people. To find out how you can help, see Ways to Help. .