‘A voice for the ages’: Family, friends celebrate former Rep. Mia Love’s legacy

SALT LAKE CITY — Former Utah Republican Congresswoman Mia Love was remembered as a passionate public servant, loving family member and friend, and proud believer in and beneficiary of the American dream during a funeral service Monday.

Family, friends, current members of Utah’s congressional delegation, and former politicians gathered for Love’s memorial service at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Institute of Religion at the University of Utah.

An eternal optimist, the best of Love “now lives on” through their three children, said her husband, Jason Love.

“We periodically spoke about this moment and the potential of one of us dying early,” Love told those at the memorial service. “But she made it very clear to me, to our family, that she wanted this moment to be a time of celebration and it’s my wish to fulfill that desire for this wonderful woman.”

Mia Love, 49, died March 23 after battling brain cancer. Her death came just days after her family announced she was no longer responding to treatment. She was originally diagnosed in March 2022 and lived two years past her prognosis of 10 to 15 months.

Love said his wife has always possessed a “superhuman” ability to connect with others — personally and professionally. He recalled being gifted three new toasters as wedding gifts. After he was told by cashiers that the appliances couldn’t be returned without a receipt, his new wife took the matter into her own hands.

“Three minutes later,” he said, “she came out with cash in hand. I thought, ‘Wow, I had married a Jedi knight.'”

Guiding her career of service was the image of the sun rising over the United States of America, he said. Though “adversaries of freedom and righteousness” try to divide the nation, Love said he and his late wife believe the sun is still rising over America.

“We celebrate her life here today and, like the rising sun, will continue to feel her warmth and her love and her principles that she has brought into our lives for years to come,” he said.

After playing a recording of Mia Love reading from her book, “Qualified,” urging people to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the country, Jason Love said: “I join my voice with those sweet words of my dear wife and partner, Mia, and invite you to join her in her unfinished work of making America a more perfect union.”

The three Love children — Abi, Alessa and Peyton — read their mother’s final public missive: “My living wish for the America I know,” published in the Deseret News last month before her death.

“We must fight to keep the America we know as that shining city on a hill — truly the last best hope on earth,” Mia Love wrote. “My living wish and fervent prayer for you and for this nation is that the America I have known, is the America you fight to preserve and that each citizen, and every leader, will do their part to ensure that the America we know will be the America our grandchildren and great grandchildren will inherit.”

Love launched her political career by getting elected to the Saratoga Springs City Council in 2003. She won her race for mayor of the Utah County city in 2009.

In 2012, she made a bid for Congress in 2012 against then-Rep. Jim Matheson, a Democrat. She narrowly lost that race but bounced back to win two years later after Matheson decided not to seek reelection. She served for two terms.

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson recalled meeting Love in 2009 during her run for Saratoga Springs mayor, which led to a long friendship.

“Mia lived up to her name. She did everything with her whole heart,” Henderson said. “She genuinely loved people and was never too busy to think of others and offer words of encouragement. She cared about her friends’ children and always asked us for updates on what was happening in their lives.”

Henderson recalled Love’s fierce determination to live after she was diagnosed with cancer, and she did everything she could to stay healthy as she fought the disease.

“Of all my memories of Mia, the dearest to me are those times during the past three years that we were there for each other in our toughest moments,” Henderson said. “She needed her friends, and we needed her, and she gave us just as much love and support as we tried to give her.”

Elder Ronald A. Rasband, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also spoke at the funeral. He was Jason Love’s mission president in New York where Jason and Mia Love first met.

Elder Rasband became emotional as he described pleading with God to allow Mia Love to live.

“I prayed with all the fervor of my being that God would grant unto Mia a miracle. I went as close as a person could ever go to demanding it,” Elder Rasband said.

But, the apostle added, he always asked that God’s will would be done.

“I have a peace coming to this celebration today that Mia’s departure from us here physically is the will and the mercy and the direction of her loving Heavenly Father,” Elder Rasband said.

Mia Love’s Latter-day Saint bishop, Taylor Yates, conducted the funeral service. He said the former congresswoman had a “voice for the ages” that inspired, comforted, and led others.

“Mia is not gone,” Yates said. “Her voice lives on in the hearts of her family, in the lives she touched and now raising up on high in the presence of her Creator.”

Cyndi Brito, Mia Love’s sister, called her sibling “one of the bravest people” she ever knew. Brito remembered her sister’s participation in school plays, noting that she always sought “major roles” on stage.

“Whatever role our sister took,” Brito said, “she was the best at it.”

Prior to the funeral, several hundred paid their respects to the late congresswoman as she lay in state at the Capitol in Salt Lake City Sunday evening. Longtime friends remembered Love as a gifted public orator, recalling her 2012 speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, that launched her into the national spotlight.

Love’s time in Congress ended in 2019 after she lost to former Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams. She later worked as a commentator on CNN, a guest host on ABC’s “The View,” and a public policy fellow at multiple universities.

During the funeral, a special choir sang several songs. Utah Attorney General Derek Brown played the piano as his wife, Emilie, performed a musical number.

After the service, a military salute took place outside the institute building, and an American flag was presented to the family. Mia Love will be interred at a later date.