Mama June Says Ashes of Late Daughter Anna Travel with Their Family ‘Everywhere’: We Take ‘the Whole Urn’ (Exclusive)

Mama June Shannon and her family find various ways to keep Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell close to them one year after her death.

Ahead of Anna’s first death anniversary, which fell on Dec. 9, June told PEOPLE exclusively that her family is “just keeping her as alive as [best as] we can,” and “letting [her eldest daughter] Kaitlyn know momma loved her” is of the utmost importance.

However, the mother of four also has things she’s doing for herself to maintain Anna’s presence in her daily life.

“For me, personally, taking her urn everywhere with us, and I’m talking about the whole urn. People might think I’m crazy, but we’re talking about the whole urn. We’re not talking about the little baby urn,” June, 45, reveals.

“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,” she says of her family. “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.”

June, however, notes that the family will “definitely” travel with Anna on road trips.

“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.'”

During such occasions, June says her family will “just leave her in the kitchen.” She also shares that they “all went to Disney and we took her.”

“This is that little stuff. Keeping the group chat, keeping her on Pumpkin’s [Bluetooth car] radio, stuff like that,” she adds.

Anna died on Dec. 9, 2023, after being diagnosed with stage 4 adrenal carcinoma earlier that year. She was 29.

“Anna loved, loved being in the spotlight. She did not give a f— what it was, being on TikTok or anything else, she loved being in the spotlight,” June says. “She loved being on reality TV because if it was up to her, we would’ve streamed her funeral. And that’s what she wanted and we [were] like, ‘No, no.’ That was the only wish we did not give her when she passed away.”

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For June and her family, it’s not just important for them to keep Anna’s memory alive but for fans to do so as well.

“We just want people to remember Anna and stuff like that,” she adds. “Whether it’s this year or next year or three years from now, we want her to be remembered, always.”