My sister Clare was eight years older than me, so she was equal parts sister and legend. She saw the Beatles! She was in Los Angeles during the Watts riots! She lived in Hawaii! She lived in Germany!
That age gap didn’t spare me from the experience that is all too common in Catholic schools when the older sibling is brilliant. First day of class, Nun sees my name, an eyebrow pokes up and she looks at me expectedly. I’d have to explain, “Yes, I’m a Liebert. No, I’m not that Liebert.”
Clare played a role in expanding my family’s horizons. Other than visiting cousins in northern Michigan and class trips to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, we really hadn’t left Wisconsin the whole time I was growing up. So, when Clare accepted a scholarship to Bradley University in Peoria, the family trip to drop her off was unchartered territory. Likewise, when she graduated and married Mike, who was in the Air Force, and their first assignment was in Florida, that was the first time my family had driven through the south. And, as traditions dictate, we all got massive sunburns! Later, my folks visited when Clare and Mike were stationed in Germany and my dad even established some business contacts with German companies.
Their son James was born in Omaha in 1980. I’m not sure he was ever diagnosed with hyperthymia, but he had to work hard not to remember what he had for lunch twelve Tuesdays ago. He also could, when given a date, tell you what day of the week it was. One of my favorite memories is sitting in their living room in Virginia, paging through one of those Lillian Vernon catalogs (talk about a bygone era!) They advertised a perpetual calendar, and the ad showed a specific date. I asked James what day of the week it was and he told me. I had to tell him he was wrong. He just gave me a “do I stutter” look. So, we looked it up and the Lillian Vernon catalog had it wrong!
When James was diagnosed with autism, the doctors told Clare and Mike that he’d probably never learn to ride a bike. But he did learn to ride a bike, and drive a car, and graduated from community college and held down a job for over fifteen years. That’s a credit to the type of person he was, but also credit to Clare. James didn’t learn the way other people did, and not at the pace other people did, so Clare effectively home schooled him all the way through community college.
Life went on for the family. James and Mike were history buffs so they took advantage of living in Norfolk to visit battlefields up and down the Eastern seaboard. As James got more confident, they added trips to the UK and Ireland.
It was no surprise when James had to have his gall bladder removed. It’s a time-honored rite of passage in my family. But when they removed the gall bladder, they discovered cancer. Gall bladder cancer is insidious in that it doesn’t show any symptoms until it’s advanced. James’ cancer was inoperable. He passed away in May 2018. Mike and Clare had lost their only son.
They turned their grief into action and established a scholarship to help deserving special needs kids continue their education (you can read about it here).
Almost simultaneous with James’ cancer, Clare was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer, especially when found in later stages, has a high remission rate. You never get to confidently ring the bell with late-stage ovarian cancer.
As the cancer ebbed and flowed, Mike and Clare continued to travel when they could. But, truth be told, having cancer is a full-time job. Starting chemotherapy cycles, going in for the treatment, recovering from the treatment, getting tests to measure the current status (in Clare’s case a bio-marker protein CA 125), meeting with the oncology team to determine the next course of action.
Chemo is often an effective tool against cancer, but it’s a harsh mistress. So much poison. When Clare went in for session 47 of the most recent treatment, the attending nurse mentioned that was the highest she had ever come across. Not a distinction one would aspire to. Clare handled it with the gentility that seems to come to women who lived most of their life in the south.
Eventually Clare’s body started to rebel, probably due to a combination of the cancer growing stronger and the effect of years of chemotherapy. Clare passed away on July 13, 2026.
Clare was a prodigious walker, loved word games, needlework (I have one of hers hanging over my fireplace), participated in the same book club for years and years, sang in the Virginia Choral Society, and was a great cook and baker (us siblings had a Christmas cookie exchange program in what was an elaborate ploy to ensure Clare would send us her cookies!) For years Clare entered this quirky analog contest called “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” that involved a road atlas and intentionally obscure directions (Ken Jennings wrote about it here.) I tried it once and, nope, it was beyond me!
It’s a strange sensation when somebody you love dies. You miss them in a million ways, but you can feel their presence in a million ways too. That’s because they are there, in you, in your very essence. I take some solace in that because the world is a better place, and I’m a better person for Clare having been here.
So, anyway, just a few words on my sister Clare.
