In small, personal ways that go largely unnoticed, 49-year-old Naomi Carter has mourned her mother’s death every day for more than 17 years.

Monday, for the first time, Carter joined thousands of other people at Ala Moana Beach Park in a most conspicuous spectacle of love and remembrance.

Organizers of the 18th annual Lantern Floating Hawaii event expected an overall crowd in the tens of thousands. And despite some threatening weather earlier in the day, the event again attracted a massive audience spread out from Magic Island to the Ewa end of the park.

Some 6,000 floating lanterns were made available to the public to personalize and set afloat in remembrance of loved ones. By 4:30 p.m., two hours before the start of the program, all the lanterns were gone.

In anticipation of a large turnout and attendant traffic congestion, free parking and shuttle service from the Hawai‘i Convention Center were made available starting at 7 a.m.

Carter arrived from Manoa by bus at about 1 p.m. and watched from beneath the shade of a low-set tent as the park slowly filled.

“I’ve been here before but I’ve never floated a lantern,” Carter said, clutching a square lantern the sides of which she had decorated with heartfelt messages to her mother, Daisy Young, and other loved ones who have died.

Carter recalled the long hours her mother worked as a housekeeping executive in Waikiki to support her and her sister.

“She was a sweet, kind, loving mother,” Carter said. “I miss her and I wish she were here.”

The ceremony program proceeded as usual with the opening blowing of a conch shell, a taiko performance, a lighting ceremony featuring local dignitaries, hula performances and an address by Shinso Ito, head of the Shinnyo-en Buddhist sect that presents the event.

Marie Munoz, 27, of Honolulu and Waianae came to the event to honor her son Anson, who died of a lung condition shortly after birth. He would have been 8 this year.

“This is very healing,” Munoz said.

Nearby, Shonie Toi, 32, of Wahiawa stood looking at the thousands massing at the shoreline.

Toi said she came to float a lantern in honor of her grandfather Bernice Gish, who died in 2002, and a baby she lost to miscarriage six years ago.

Char Peralta, 26, of Waianae and cousin Chrystal Quinto, 30, of Salt Lake sat in their usual spot just Diamond Head of the first lifeguard station, prepared to wait until after the mass of the crowd had thinned before heading to the water.

“When you wade in the water, you start to get that vibe,” Peralta said. “You get a little rush as you remember those loved ones who have passed away.”

Quinto’s husband, Gilbert, said he enjoys going to the event every year and sharing the sense of communal love and affection with others who have lost family and friends.

He rejected the complaint by some that the ceremony detracts from the purpose of Memorial Day as a time in which to honor those who died while serving in the armed forces.

“That’s what Veterans Day is for,” he said. “To me Memorial Day is for everyone who has lost someone.”

According to organizers, lantern floating “gives physical expression to the love and gratitude that participants feel for those who laid a foundation for their lives.”

And while it closely resembles the ceremonial lantern floating that marks the end of the traditional Japanese obon season — a ritual that symbolically leads the spirits of departed relatives back to their own realm — the annual ceremony at Ala Moana Beach Park, which occurs before the start of obon season, “transcends ethnic, cultural and religious boundaries.”

Lantern Floating Hawaii is presented each year by Shinnyo-en and the affiliated Na Lei Aloha Foundation.

Though not widely known locally, Shinnyo-en is one of several large, well-funded religious communities that have emerged in Japan over the last century.

The California-based Shinnyo-en Foundation reported assets of more than $14.5 million in 2014.

Shinnyo-en started performing “fire and water ceremonies” in 1992 and has since staged such events, including lantern floating, in several locations around the world, including New York, Taipei, Paris and Berlin.

Shinnyo-en activities in Hawaii are administered by the tax-exempt Na Lei Aloha Foundation. According to online nonprofit tracker NonprofitLocator.org, the organization has “significantly larger assets” and “reported to the IRS significantly more income than average” compared with other nonprofits in Hawaii.

In 2014 Na Lei Aloha Foundation reported $719,227 in revenue and $6,716,961 in total assets to the IRS.