Former congresswoman Mia Love was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme about three years ago. Now, her family is asking for people who knew her and interacted with her to share their memories so they can collect special memories to share with her.
Love’s daughter, Abigale, posted on social media that sadly, “her cancer is no longer responding to treatment and the cancer is progressing. We have a shifted our focus from treatment to enjoying our remaining time with her. I am building an archive of special memories with Mia. Please send your pictures, videos and memories to me at MiaLoveMemories@gmail.com.”
Love served as a city councilwoman and then mayor in Saratoga Springs, before becoming the congresswoman for Utah’s Congressional District 4, serving from January 2015 to January 2019. A Haitian-American, she was the first Black Republican woman to serve in Congress. While in Congress, she served on the House Financial Services Committee and she joined the Congressional Black Caucus.
After her two terms in Congress, Love went on to become a contributor at CNN, a fellow of the institute of politics and public service at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, the national outreach director for Utah State University’s Center for Growth and Opportunity, and for a time, joined “The View” as part of their rotating guest hosts.
After Love’s diagnosis of a GBM brain tumor, she entered a clinical trial at Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University in North Carolina. She was the third person admitted to the immunotherapy trial, overseen by Dr. Henry Friedman, a neuro-oncologist and deputy director of the center. In August 2023, she shared publicly for the first time her battle with brain cancer at a YSA Area Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In May 2024, Love spoke with Jake Tapper, the lead Washington anchor for CNN, where she shared that her faith had been an essential part of her journey in outliving the initial prediction of 10-15 months of survival. She told Tapper: “I was looking for a cure in faith and in science.” Dr. Friedman told Tapper: “The single most important thing we offered her is hope.”
Now, with the news that her cancer is no longer responding to treatment, her family wants to maximize the joy in her time remaining, however long that is.
Originally published in the Deseret News
