A Wholesome Moment With Her Dad
Makaila's Life and Death
Makaila's Life - A Mother's Perspective
To My Precious Daughter,
Makaila, I hope you realize how grateful I am to be your mother. I feel lucky to have known you. You deserved to live a full life, but knowing that your killer is no longer free has allowed me to start focusing solely on grieving you, my sweet baby girl. Your life mattered. You mattered. You still do, and you always will. I will grieve you for the rest of my life and I will continue to mourn what you lost, but I hope, my precious, sweet, kind, beautiful daughter, that you can finally be at peace, wherever you may be. Know that keeping your memory alive is what keeps me going. I like to imagine you are in a beautiful forest that is illuminated by a gentle sunlight and full of all sorts of animals and insects that you can interact with and observe. I like to imagine there's always something new and exciting for you to see, and that your laugh is echoing through the trees while you happily explore your surroundings. That you are always exactly the warmth you want to be and that you never feel lonely or miss any of us because you can visit whenever you want. I like to imagine that you turned up my radio this morning. That you opened that umbrella when our cat Rhea was nearby just to let her know you were there. That you opened the door all those times and turned off those lights. That you knocked over those products from the shelves when I was at work nearly every time I started tearing up because something reminded me of life with you before yours was stolen. There's more and I hope it continues...and I will choose to view these moments as your intervention to help your mama learn to cope with my life, in this after, by showing me you're still here. If you are able to, I know you are doing your best to help all of us through this. I imagine you aren't sad for us because it's impossible for you to feel anything but joy, happiness, love, and peace. That's my hope for you, anyway. I love you, Makaila. I will always talk about you. I will always include you. How honored I am to have the privilege of keeping your memory alive. I tell people that your favorite color was sage green and the reason that sunflowers represent you to us is because your beautiful, bright blue eyes had yellow bursting from the center that your Nana once said resembled a sunflower. I smile regularly thinking of you, and I hope you knew that you brought nothing but joy and light into my life, and even now you still do. You are not what happened to you. You are so much more, and you will always be a huge part of my life. I wish you had the opportunity to live the life you deserved, but I will do everything in my power to keep your memory alive. I promise. Congratulations, my precious girl. Our prosecutor, Corey Miner, fought hard and he got justice for you, Jenna, and Chloe on June 25th, 2026. I am so proud to have had the honor of having you as my daughter. I hope you know how many people love you, 'Kaila. People you didn't even know are saying your name. 💚🌻
