WILMINGTON — Rebecca Claire Rains passed away on July 23, 2026. She was born a Christmas baby, in the year 2000, to Chris and Elizabeth Rains in Charlotte, NC.
She was a happy child and a beautiful girl. She grew up among many friends, playing until dark, collecting earthworms and investigating other animals with an insatiable curiosity for nature. She was a little lady, doted upon lovingly by her grandparents, Uncles and Aunts, and cousins. She lived her short life with several medical problems, requiring many visits and surgeries throughout her life, ultimately fighting daily back pain and migraines. After one of her brain surgeries, she asked for a math workbook so she could do math problems to stave off boredom!
When she was in sixth grade, she asked for the book, Grey’s Anatomy for Christmas, her curiosity growing ever wider about the beings around her. She went on to attend a magnet school, following the Medical Pathway of courses, fulfilling her need to know more about the way we function as humans. She did well, graduating a semester early, Suma Cum Laude. She attended Central Piedmont Community College, where she graduated and moved on to UNC Wilmington. Her love of birds and ornithology guided her into working with her professors on bird and habitat studies. She spent hours outside of school seeking and studying birds. She traveled all over NC and SC to find them and watch their behaviors.
She eventually graduated Magna Cum Laude from UNC-Wilmington with a degree in Biology and a minor in Chemistry. She, like many others her age fresh out of college, found the job market difficult to pin down. She found contract work studying osprey nests on cell towers so that cell companies could maintain their towers without violating Federal laws surrounding birds of prey and their activity. She had recently been admitted to UNC’s School of Medicine to get a second degree in Clinical Lab Science, set to begin in the fall.
She came home to attend birthday celebrations for her mother and brother, three days apart, and was driving back to her new apartment in Chapel Hill. She had plans to meet up with her friends online that night and watch a movie. Unfortunately, on her way to her new apartment, she was involved in a tragic accident that took her life just as it was beginning. She will be missed by all who knew her for her sense of humor, her kindness and her ability to cut through everything and see what truly matters the most – our humanity.
She is survived by her parents, her brother Cooper of Wilmington, her grandparents, Bill and Edwina Rains of Gibsonville, NC, Dudley and Peggy Crawford of Pinehurst, NC, her Uncles Neil Rains (Lorelie) of Whitsett, NC, Emmet Crawford (Heidi) of Kingsport, Tn, Reeves Anderson of Fort Collins, Co, and her Aunts, Jill Horne (Watson) of Wilmington, NC, Maggie Cagno (Greg) of Winston Salem, NC, and all of her cousins in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Colorado. She was preceded in death by her maternal grandmother, Gwendolyn Crawford.
Claire, we love you with all our hearts and will never forget you. You will be missed more than words can say but you are no longer in pain. For that, we find comfort. Fly with the angels sweetheart.
