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Mia Love, the first Black Republican woman to serve in Congress, was remembered Monday as a leader who lifted people up with laughter and wisdom and will continue to inspire others to great things. “On this earth, Mia was a powerful force for good,” said Lt. Gov Deidre Henderson, a friend of Love’s for more than two decades.
“She used her influence to spread her faith in America, uplift and build those around her, always believing that we are stronger and better together,” she said. “I miss her. We all miss her.
And although she is no longer physically present in our lives, she does still live. She lives in her children and grandchild. She lives in the heart and memory of her husband and every person she loved.
She lives in her friends, in any bold or courageous action we take.” Love died March 23 after a three-year battle with brain cancer . She was 49.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Abigale Love, right, embraces her grandparents during a flag ceremony for former U.S. Rep.
Mia Love at the University of Utah Institute of Religion in Salt Lake City, Monday, April 7, 2025. The daughter of Haitian immigrants, she was the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress. She served in the U.
S. House from 2015 to 2019, and previously was elected as mayor and to the City Council in Saratoga Springs. She was mother to three children — Alessa, Abigale and Payton — with her husband, Jason Love, who said their children inherited their mother’s love of dance and song.
“They are the best of her and she lives on within them,” he said during Monday’s celebration of her life. Mia Love often told of her parents fleeing the oppressive regime in Haiti with $10 in their pocket, settling in Brooklyn, where Ludmya (Mia) Bourdeau was born Dec. 6, 1975.
They later moved to Connecticut, where Mia developed a love for theatre. Cyndi Brito, Mia’s sister, remembered how Mia would try out for school plays — always the major roles — and “would practice and rehearse all day and all night, and she wasn’t quiet about it. She was loud, annoying the rest of the family members who lived in our childhood home.
” Whatever part she played in life — on stage or as mother, wife, congresswoman, aunt — Brito said, “Mia Love took a role and was best at it.” (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Cyndi Brito, Mia's sister, speaks with her brother Jean by her side, during Mia's funeral service at the University of Utah Institute of Religion - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Monday, April 7, 2025. Jason Love recounted how he met Mia while he was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then reconnected after she was baptized into the church and moved to Utah.
They married after dating for a few months. His wife, he said, had “Jedi powers” that made her a leader in a dispute with a developer — over controlling small flies known as midges — then led to her being recruited to run for city council, mayor and eventually Congress. She was motivated by an abiding faith in the opportunity America has to offer.
“Her experience during her 49 years of life is an example that the sun is rising in America,” he said. After Mia lost her 2018 reelection bid, Jason Love said there was more time for family, and in 2022, they planned a vacation to Puerto Rico. But a few months before the trip, Mia began suffering severe migraine headaches.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson speaks during the funeral service for Mia Love at the University of Utah Institute of Religion - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Monday, April 7, 2025.
Henderson recalled how Love had texted her from Puerto Rico: “I don’t have the heart to tell anyone,” Mia wrote. “Tell anyone what, Mia? I asked. She responded, ‘After a horrible night in the emergency room, they found a mass in my brain.
‘” Doctors identified it as a glioblastoma in her right temporal lobe, and she was given 10-15 months to live. “Having lost my own mother to brain cancer, this was devastating to my family,” Jason Love said. “Mia was so healthy, so active, how could this have happened?” Henderson said that her friends rallied around her with dinners, and after the pathology tests confirmed the worst, Mia told Henderson, “I’ve decided I’m not going to die.
I’ve decided that I’m actually going to live.” She was on the treadmill two weeks after brain surgery, Henderson said, to make sure she was as healthy as she could be for the fight. “‘I’m in fight mode,’ she told us,” Henderson said, and that Love asked for friends to help her fight.
“This is a campaign and we’re going to win,” Love would say, according to Henderson. “‘Fight with me, run with me, climb that summit with me.‘” (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Elder Ronald A.
Rasband, speaks during the funeral service for Mia Love at the University of Utah Institute of Religion - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Monday, April 7, 2025. Elder Ronald A. Rasband, who is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was Jason Love’s mission president and knew Mia from the time she was baptized into the faith, said he gave her several priesthood blessings.
“I want you to know that I prayed with all the fervor of my being that God would grant unto Mia a miracle,” Rasband said. “I went as close as a person could ever go to demanding it, knowing that that was probably not appropriate for me to do.” Henderson said Love explained she was mourning the loss of what her life could have been.
“‘It always seemed so positive to me and bright. My future felt bright, and now I’m mourning who I was and the life I led before, and fear that I won’t get it back again,” Henderson said Love told her. Over the three years, she got to see her kids grow and her first granddaughter born.
“Mia fought cancer valiantly,” Jason Love said. “She doubled the life expectancy in typical Mia Love fashion.” (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Husband Jason Love speaks at funeral services for former U.
S. Rep. Mia Love at the University of Utah Institute of Religion in Salt Lake City on Monday, April 7, 2025.
He called combating cancer his wife’s “unfinished work” and encouraged those at her service to do what they can to “get to the bottom of this cruel disease that takes from us.” Love’s body lay in state in the rotunda of the Utah Capitol on Sunday. Monday’s memorial service was attended by a half dozen current and former members of Congress, former Gov.
Gary Herbert and Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who served in the House alongside Love. Afterward, a bugler blew “Taps” as an honor guard folded the American flag that had been draped over her casket and handed it to her family. “From the beginning, Mia’s voice — strong and purposeful and full of light — became a gift to all who knew her,” said Bishop Taylor Yates, who conducted the service.
“She used it to lift with laughter, to sing from her heart, to lead with wisdom and to fight for what she believed in. ..
. Mia’s not gone. Her voice lives on in the lives that she touched and now, raising it up on high in the presence of her Creator.
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