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Childhood Cancer Awareness Month: Memories Etched in the Hearts of Family and Friends

By  //  September 17, 2025

Michele Delaune talks about the loss of her best friend’s child, Olivia Owens

Michele Delaune, right, and Olivia Owens, who died of DIPG, a rare form of brain cancer, in December 2023. Delaune is best friends with Olivia’s mom, Samantha, and gives her thoughts as to what it means to lose someone with whom she was so very close.

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA- When you watch your best friend try to cope with the passing of her daughter, there is nothing you can do or say to make it better.

No words, no gestures, no amount of time can soften the blow or ease the pain. The truth is, nothing will ever make the world right again. How could it be?

Olivia was only eight years old—vibrant, funny, caring, and intelligent beyond her years. She had dreams. Big ones. She had that spark that lit up every room she walked into, and the best belly laugh ever.

And she should’ve had the chance to grow up, to chase those dreams, to live a long, beautiful life surrounded by the people who adored her. But brain cancer stole that from her—and from all of us.

Michele Delaune (right) and Olivia Owens (left). Olivia died of DIPG, a rare form of brain cancer, in December 2023. Delaune is best friends with Olivia’s mom, Samantha, and gives her thoughts as to what it means to lose someone with whom she was so very close.

It’s hard to understand how something so cruel could happen to someone so full of light. Watching my friend lose her child has been the most helpless experience of my life. You want to hold them together, to fix something that can’t be fixed.

All you can do is be there, even when you know your presence can’t touch the depth of their grief. Just sitting next to them, sometimes in silence, a shoulder to cry on, and daily check-ins.

Samantha wakes up every day in a world that doesn’t have Olivia in it and somehow finds the strength to keep breathing. That’s courage. That’s love in its most broken, most sacred form. Her heart will never be whole again, and neither will the lives of those who loved Olivia.

But what remains—what always will—is Olivia’s impact. The love she gave, the joy she brought, and the memories etched in the hearts of her family and friends. She mattered. She will always matter.

Michele Delaune, left, with Samantha Owens, who lost her daughter, Olivia, to DIPG, a rare form of brain cancer, in December 2023. Delaune is best friends with Owens and was Olivia’s physical education teacher at Odyssey Charter School in Palm Bay.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Michele Delaune was not only Olivia Owens’ physical education teacher at Odyssey Charter School in Palm Bay, but she is the best friend of Smantha Owens, who lost her child, Olivia, to DIPG, a rare form of brain cancer in December 2023.