Life dealt her a blow so cruel it left the world around her spinning out of control.
Her son, the light of her life, was gone.
She remembered the moment as if it were etched into her bones.
Walking into that sterile, cold room, her eyes fell upon him.
The lifeless body of her child lay on the table, pale and still, a cruel parody of the boy she had kissed awake only days before.
They would not allow her to touch him.
The rules of evidence, they said.
But she didn’t care about rules, only the heartache.
Every blink of her eyes felt like a scene from a movie, a horror she could not escape.
Nothing made sense.
She pinched herself, squeezed her arms, desperate for any proof that she was still awake, that this was not real.
For weeks, she bruised herself in that same futile gesture.
Three weeks of relentless self-torture, a reminder that her worst nightmare had no pause button.
It was real.
She could feel it in every breath, every tear that rolled down her cheeks.
She could not summon the words to make sense of the absence that now filled her home.
She wandered the streets, numb and hollow.
The sun seemed dim, filtered through a cloud she could not shake.
Birmingham itself appeared to mourn with her, dark and heavy as though the city had wrapped itself in her grief.
The song Love Galore by SZA played on the radio, a cruel echo of the life that had been stolen from her.
Each note struck a chord in her soul, an aching reminder of love lost.
She sought refuge in places familiar, hoping the normality of life might cushion the blow.
Dawg Barbershop in Ensley became her sanctuary, not because of the haircuts, but because of the presence of her friend, her coach.
He sat beside her in silence, a steady pillar while she unraveled.
She cried like a child, unashamed, because no adult words could contain this kind of sorrow.
Helplessness enveloped her like a second skin.
Friends, neighbors, family—they tried to speak comfort, but words failed.
No amount of reassurance could fill the hollow where her son had been.
The days bled into each other.
She could not eat.
She could not sleep.
Even breathing felt like a monumental task.
Each room in her house whispered memories, echoes of laughter, traces of the small, ordinary moments that had become sacred in their absence.
She remembered his little shoes by the door, his tiny coat hanging in the closet, the unwashed cup that always seemed to sit beside the sink.
Every small object became a dagger of remembrance.
She wandered from room to room, tracing the outline of absence, feeling the ghost of his presence in every corner.
The nights were the worst.
Darkness was a mirror reflecting her pain, amplifying it, mocking the fact that life went on outside while hers had stopped.
She would sit by the window, looking at the stars, and wonder if he could see her.
If he knew she was alive, but broken.
If he could forgive her for being left behind.
People told her she could heal.
Time would ease the pain.
But she knew the truth.
She could learn to live with it, yes.
She could carry the memory with less immediate sting.
But she would never recover in the sense that life before would return.
There was no undoing this.
The birthday candles, the scraped knees, the whispered secrets shared in the dark—gone.
Funerals came and went, leaving her with only photographs and memories that burned brighter than any flame could.
The world expected her to return to normalcy, to smile, to breathe, to function.
She tried, often failing, often hiding behind a thin veneer of composure.
But the grief was constant.
A shadow companion that traveled with her everywhere.
She found herself reflecting on the lives others had lost—a parent, a sibling, a friend.
She understood sorrow, yes.
But she also understood the unbridgeable gap between losing anyone else and losing a child.
There is no comparison.
The world may continue for others, but for a parent, it stops.
It rewrites itself around absence.
She learned that gratitude was strange in grief.
Gratitude that she had other moments, other people to love.
Yet she could not help but feel that everything else paled against the enormity of what was taken.
Her faith wavered.
Prayers felt hollow.
Yet she prayed anyway.
Because in the darkness, there was only the possibility of connection, fleeting though it might be.
Each night, she whispered to him, speaking to the child she would never hold again.
She asked him to watch over her, to guide her through the days when pain threatened to consume her.
And somehow, imagining him above, seeing the world from a place she could not reach, gave her a fragile solace.
She began to see small sparks of life again, moments that made breathing slightly less unbearable.
A song that once brought tears now reminded her of the love that had existed.
The love that still existed.
Friends and strangers alike became her lifeline, helping her navigate the impossible.
She realized that grief did not vanish; it evolved.
It became a quiet companion, a testament to what had been, a reminder that love is eternal even when life is not.
She planted flowers in his memory, creating a living tribute to the boy who had once filled her world with laughter.
She spoke to him daily, carried his name in her heart, in everything she did.
Time softened some edges, but never erased the pain.
She accepted that she would carry it forever, a mark of both suffering and devotion.
And slowly, amid the sorrow, she found purpose.
To honor him.
To live, even in the face of unbearable loss.
To remind herself and others that grief is a reflection of love, that loving someone this deeply is the proof of the bond that cannot be severed by death.
Her son would remain her teacher, her guide, her eternal inspiration.
Keep resting, Son Son, she whispered.
Keep watching over us.
For as long as she lived, he would remain alive in her heart.
And though the world had shifted, though the sun might never shine the same way again, she understood something fundamental: love never dies.
A Bright Light Gone Too Soon: Celebrating Claire’s Love, Joy, and Spirit.1992
Claire Violet Laibinis. October 20th, 2017 – August 27th, 2024. Forever 6, Neuroblastoma.
Sweet Claire passed away early Tuesday morning after a courageous battle with Neuroblastoma that began in June 2020.