Nearly 100 people gathered in the backyard of a hilltop house in Kalihi Valley last night to light candles in sympathy for a California woman protesting her 24-year-old son's death in Iraq.

"She's just a mother among other mothers," said Cecile Smith, 68, one of the participants. "But she's a catalyst, it seems."

It was one of nearly a dozen such gatherings across Hawai'i and hundreds across the nation urged by Cindy Sheehan, whose own vigil at a makeshift camp near President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch began on Aug. 6 to honor her son, Casey, who was killed in Iraq last year.

Smith, whose nephew is serving in Iraq, stood for 45 minutes with a candle in her hand with only one wish in her mind.

"We should get out now," she said. "Our young men and women are dying out there. It's scary."

Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., has vowed to remain through Bush's monthlong ranch visit unless he meets with her and other grieving families.

"I'm very moved by one person making a difference," said Kalihi resident Charmaine Crockett, who held the vigil at her house.

The event was one of 11 planned statewide, scheduled for a simultaneous start at 7:30 p.m. on O'ahu, Kaua'i, Maui and the Big Island. It also was among more than 1,600 similar gatherings planned across the country, according to liberal advocacy groups MoveOn.org Political Action, TrueMajority and Democracy for America.

Crockett said she advertised the event happening at her home earlier this week on MoveOn.org after learning no vigils had been planned in Hawai'i in support of Sheehan.

"This isn't an anti-war protest. The beauty of it lies in its silence," said Crockett, who in the past has organized a public viewing of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" on a giant screen in Chinatown.

"And I never expected it to get this large," she said of the vigils. "I think underneath, everyone wants peace in the end."

Monica Evans, whose husband is serving with the Army in the Green Zone in Baghdad, said not enough Americans have been personally touched by the war the way she and Sheehan have.

"The war has ripped my heart," said Evans, president of the Hawai'i chapter of Military Families Speak Out. "It's like my husband is dying, but he has not died yet."

Evans, who heard Sheehan speak in March at a meeting of peace organizations in Fayetteville, N.C., said she doesn't want an immediate pullout of the troops, but an assurance that the process of scaling back troop numbers would begin today.

"We want the process to start now," Evans said.

Crockett also hinted that the California woman's personal grief could be motivating a new wave of peace activists, saying she was surprised to receive messages from parents who had never been to a protest before asking if they could join her vigil. She said anti-war activists and at least two Vietnam veterans had registered to participate.

Mark Narcwornow, who served in the military and ended his service shortly after the Vietnam War broke out, hoped the vigil would stress the need to bring back U.S. troops serving in Iraq.

"I know I'm only one drop in the Pacific Ocean," said Narcwornow, a respiratory therapist at Kuakini Medical Center. "But I'm hoping it will ripple out."

The vigil brought together teachers, students and retirees, among others, to a hillside overlooking Pearl Harbor. Some held signs urging the president to meet with Sheehan.

"She's being rational about this and asking some moral questions," said Jaymes Monaldi, 35, a musician from Santa Barbara, Calif., in Hawai'i to visit his girlfriend. "The troops are there for no reason."