December 2023 feels like it was both yesterday and a lifetime ago for this family, and Friday made that painfully clear. Mama June Shannon and her crew spent August 28 doing what a lot of grieving families do on birthdays that shouldn’t have to be marked this way anymore – they celebrated Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell’s life on what would’ve been her 32nd birthday. She’s been gone almost two years now. Doesn’t make it easier. If anything, from what I can tell watching this play out publicly, it gets heavier in a different way each time.
A TikTok, a Trip, and a Lot of Feelings
Mama June, 47, posted a video Friday with a caption that honestly stopped me for a second: “Happy heavenly birthday to Anna as we go to Colorado to celebrate alana 21st u will b there with us.” Typos and all. That’s not a knock, by the way – real grief doesn’t come with a copy editor. She followed it up with “We miss u everyday some days are harder [than] others,” which, yeah. That’s the whole thing right there, isn’t it? Some days you’re fine and some days you’re not, and there’s no predicting which is which.
Here’s the detail that really gets me though – Anna shared a birthday with her little sister, Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson. So this family doesn’t get to just celebrate one milestone at a time. They’re heading to Colorado to mark Alana turning 21, and Anna’s birthday is baked into that same date, forever. I can’t imagine what that does to a calendar. Every single year, August 28 is going to be both a party and a memorial, whether they want it to be or not.
The Kaitlyn Detail That Stood Out
Mama June mentioned that Anna’s eldest daughter, Kaitlyn, actually suggested the family put together a video highlighting the big milestones they’ve lived through since Anna passed. That’s a lot to ask of a young woman who’s grieving her own mother. But it also tracks – sometimes the people closest to a loss are the ones who push hardest to keep the memory active instead of letting it just sit there, untouched, too painful to look at.
Anna left behind two daughters, Kaitlyn and Kylee, and this family has been fairly open about how they’re navigating raising them – or supporting them, since they’re not exactly little kids anymore – in the aftermath. Mama June and Honey Boo Boo have given updates on Kaitlyn specifically before, which tells you the public has been watching this particular thread pretty closely. And look, I get why. There’s something about watching a family try to hold itself together after losing a daughter and a sister that people can’t help but pay attention to.
“We miss u everyday some days are harder than others.”
Why This Keeps Resonating With People
This isn’t the first tribute, and it won’t be the last. Anna died in December 2023 after a battle with adrenal cancer, and her family – particularly Mama June – has made a point of not letting her fade from the public narrative. Some celebrities go quiet after a loss like this. Mama June hasn’t, not really. She’s kept Anna’s name in the conversation, birthday after birthday, milestone after milestone.
I’ll be honest, I have mixed feelings about how much of grief plays out on camera these days. But in this case? It feels less like content for content’s sake and more like a family that genuinely doesn’t want their daughter forgotten. There’s a difference, and you can usually tell which one you’re watching.
What This Actually Means
At the end of the day – okay, I said I wouldn’t use that phrase, but it fits here – this is just a family trying to figure out how to hold joy and grief in the same hand. Alana’s turning 21. That’s supposed to be fun, carefree, maybe a little reckless. And it will be, in Colorado, surrounded by people who love her. But Anna’s absence is going to sit right there in the room too, uninvited but impossible to ignore.
Maybe that’s actually the healthiest way to handle it. Not pretending the day is only about celebration, and not letting the day become only about mourning either. Just… both. At once. Messy and real, the way most grief actually is.
