Mama June reveals unique way she honors late daughter Anna 'Chickadee' Cardwell after cancer death

Mama June has revealed the striking way she honors her late daughter Anna 'Chickadee' Cardwell, who succumbed to cancer.

Chickadee died exactly one year ago this Monday, having previously revealed she was battling adrenal carcinoma that progressed to stage 4.

June took in Chickadee's eldest daughter Kaitlyn, 12,  and was awarded full custody of her after a months-long court battle.

Now, June has shared that she is 'just keeping her as alive as [best as] we can' and 'letting Kaitlyn know momma loved her.'

She revealed that one way of holding onto Chickadee's memory is: 'For me, personally, taking her urn everywhere with us, and I'm talking about the whole urn.'

The 45-year-old added: 'People might think I'm crazy, but we're talking about the whole urn. We're not talking about the little baby urn,' via People.

June has three surviving daughters - Jessica 'Chubbs' Shannon, 28, Lauryn 'Pumpkin' Efird, 24, and Alana 'Honey Boo Boo' Thompson, 19.

She is currently married to one Justin Stroud, whom she met in rehab in 2021 after battling an addiction to crack cocaine. 

'We do all wear jewelry [with her ashes] that we have, but the big urn, if we're driving somewhere, she goes with us. Now, do we fly with her? No. But we fly with her on jewelry. We don't fly with the big urn,' said June.

'If we're flying, no, she's not left in the house. What we normally do is we take her in the car, we'll leave her in the car parked at a parking lot and then she stays there for a week, because we don't want to fly with her and then have her taken away. We just don't want to take that risk,' she explained.

Chickadee 'definitely' accompanies June in the car, her mother noted. 'We drove to Colorado, she went to Alabama, she's going to South Carolina this weekend. So just keeping that part like: "Okay, Anna's in the car." Or we went to Justin's momma this past week in Alabama and I was like: "Well, shoot, we brought Anna here."'

June disclosed that 'all went to Disney and we took her,' adding that traveling with Chickadee's ashes was part of the 'little stuff. Keeping the group chat, keeping her on Pumpkin's [Bluetooth car] radio, stuff like that.'

Chickadee's harrowing final decline with cancer was filmed for the family's WEtv reality show Mama June: Family Crisis. 

She allowed cameras to follow her into her last hours, but the show declined to shoot her death or funeral out of respect for the family's grief.

Chickadee left behind her husband Eldridge Toney and two daughters - Kylee, nine, by her ex-husband Michael Cardwell, and Kaitlyn, 12, by a previous relationship.

Before she died, Chickadee agreed that her mother would take Kaitlyn in - but this year June had to wage a legal battle over the issue against Michael, who wanted custody of both Kaitlyn and his biological daughter Kylee.

June was determined to retain guardianship of Kaitlyn, saying: 'Anna wanted Kaitlyn to stay with her biological family, and I'm going to fight to my last breath till I don't have any more fight in me to make sure that is how it works.'

In September of this year, June emerged victorious in the legal battle with Michael when a Georgia judge granted her full custody of Kaitlyn.