When Grief Meets AI: Finding Light in the Spaces Where Photos Are Missing

There is an ongoing debate about artificial intelligence—its ethics, its risks, its impact on creativity and memory. But for parents like me, who have buried a child, AI doesn’t exist in the realm of controversy. It exists in the space between what is and what will never be. It exists in the aching gap where photos should have been.

This time of year makes those gaps louder.

The holidays carry their own kind of gravity. Every ornament, every string of lights, every Christmas card photo reminds you of who is here—and who is not. While everyone else seems to be capturing moments with their complete families, those of us living with child loss hold onto the few images we have, revisiting them like sacred ground. We don’t get updated photos. We don’t get new traditions. We don’t get the magic of watching another year go by.

And that is where AI quietly stepped in for me.

Recreating the Photos That Never Had a Chance to Exist

I asked AI to help me create a photo of my three living children with their brother, Barrett. A photo that no camera could ever take. A memory that grief refuses to let me imagine clearly on my own.

At first, I used an image of Barrett as a baby—the only version of him I truly have. Seeing him wrapped gently in a blanket, held by his siblings, was breathtaking. But it was also jarring. Because the truth is: if Barrett were alive, he wouldn’t be a baby. He would be six years old. He would be running around with them, laughing, losing teeth, writing letters to Santa.

So I asked AI to imagine a six-year-old version of my son.

And the image was beautiful… but also foreign. It looked like a child my heart recognized but my memory did not. It reminded me that no matter how advanced technology becomes, nothing can replicate the knowing that comes from holding your child, memorizing their breaths, their tiny sounds, their weight in your arms. AI can project, create, and approximate—but it cannot replace.

Still, both images moved me. Both gave me something I didn’t have before. Both showed the truth of a grieving mother: longing and love sitting right beside each other.

The Paradox: Beauty and Pain in a Single Image

These AI-created photos are not perfect. They don’t “fix” anything. In fact, they almost illuminate the wound more starkly. They show a version of my family as it could have been—one I’ll never get to photograph naturally. A version of Barrett that lives only in memory, imagination, and what-ifs.

And yet… they also give me moments of connection.

For a brief second, when I look at the picture, my brain stops counting the missing seat at the table. It stops trying to visualize what he might look like today. It stops wondering how tall he would be standing next to his siblings this Christmas.

The image—whether it is exactly right or not—lets my heart breathe.

When you lose a child, you lose their future. You lose every holiday that never gets to happen. You lose updated family photos. You lose the version of yourself that once believed you were safe from this kind of heartbreak.

AI didn’t take away those losses. But it gave me a glimpse of something I didn’t know I needed: the chance to see my children together, even if only in a way grief can understand.