Update from Scott Milam

I'm very sad and sorry to report the following, from Scott Milam, Jewell's husband. Scott, you are a wonderful man and very strong. You will be in our prayers.
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Jewell Aurora Milam
5/5/1982 - 8/29/2008

Jewell passed away in the early hours of Friday morning. She peacefully slipped away in her sleep without any struggle. Over the last two years she bravely fought Sarcoma Cancer. She met the challenge with optimism from the onset and it wasn't until recently that she realized her cancer would take her life. But even then, she stayed positive and was more concerned about me and the kids than her own fate.

As difficult as dealing with this is, I feel fortunate that things happened the way they did. It's hard to explain how I feel fortunate, but probably not that hard to understand. Imagine if you knew you were going to pass through the veil..........how would you want to go?..........where would you want it to happen?............what would you want to do before it happened? Well like I already said, she slipped away in her sleep without any struggle. She spent the last week of her life at home. And she was able to say goodbye to nearly all of her family. There was nothing left to do. I still don't know why all of this had to happen. It's difficult to understand why she had to die..........why my kids had to lose their mommy. She is a good woman, was a fantastic wife, and the best mom on earth. She is irreplaceable. I am going to miss her more than i can express. Even though I'm surrounded by family and friends, I feel very alone without her.

This hurts very deep right now, but I know that Jewell was faithful during her life and endured to the end. Her place in the eternities is sealed and her legacy will live on. I know that we will live together again as a family someday.

Funeral services will be held in her honor Tuesday, September 2nd starting @ 11 a.m. at the Kentwood LDS church building. All are welcome. If there is anyone who wants to come to the funeral and needs additional details please contact either Terri or Ginger.......sorry I am staying purposely "out of the loop" sort of. Thanks to everyone who has already shared their love and support and surely for all the thoughts and prayers in Jewell's behalf over the last year. Thank you.

Terri (Jewell's Mom) - 907-354-1002
Ginger (My Mom) - 253-740-0614

Jewell Segriff Milam

I recently learned that my friend and college roommate, Jewell Milam, has been battling cancer. I've been sitting around for the last couple of days trying to think about what I could do to help her and her family, but I don't have any experience with this kind of situation really. I mean, if it were me or Aaron, what could people do for me that would bring me comfort? I have no idea. But I needed to do SOMETHING. So I thought I would just share some of my memories of her.

I started my first year of college 7 years ago. I showed up in a new town all the way from Michigan with almost no one that I knew and completely unprepared for mormon culture. As soon as I met my 5 new roommates (Jacque, Tisha, Lynette, Amy, and Jewell), I was immediately nervous because they had all already been roommates before. But within the first week (and after my first trip to the mesh maze!) we were becoming best friends and for the rest of the year, they were my family. Jewell was the first to teach me how to play the guitar, which I still try to do now. We saw her first kiss with her husband Scott (who ironically had been a missionary in my home ward). She wrote a song to sing to a boy I liked to help me ask him to a dance. But the thing I remember most is her cheerful personality and positive attitude. It was exactly what I needed. My roommates that first year of college were a perfect mix of what Heavenly Father new I needed to make me the person I am today (which is someone I'm much more proud of than before that year). I'm grateful to Jewell for being a part of that. She is wonderful!

She has been more positive through this experience with her illness than I could ever imagine. Her husband and children are lucky to have her in their lives. I am praying for her recovery and for her and her family to be comforted, and I hope you will all keep her in your prayers as well.

Here are some pictures of our time together. Sorry about the quality, they're scans of old pictures! Gotta love the pre-digital age. Love you Jewell!

Celebrating our friend Nick's birthday at Denny's in the middle of the night.

Getting ready to go watch Jewell audition for guitars unplugged

Jewell and Scott pre-married life

In front of our school sign with the roommates and neighbors

In front of Colonial House #208

Those were good times!


Below I am adding pictures that people have sent to me. These first ones are from Charity Hammock Carter.

Updates finally!

My excuse for the lack of updates is that we've spent this last month on kind of a rollercoaster; moving, working, etc. We've had our computer set up but now we finally have the camera and all the cords needed to upload pictures and whatnot. So here we go!

Aaron has been working extra hard this last month on a huge landscaping project. They have a bunch of guys from the college working for their company but school starts soon so they've been on overload trying to get things done before they go back to school.

The ballet performance I rehearsed for all summer (which took up every single one of my Saturdays since April) was a couple of weekends ago. It went great and I had a lot of fun. I'm so happy to be dancing again!

Jade has been changing like crazy! I can't believe how fast she learns new things. She's been crawling for a few months, but now she stands up in the middle of the floor on her own without holding on to anything. She'll be walking any day. She'll turn 10 months in just a few days.

We really haven't had the time to do anything fun all summer long so I have very few pictures, but here are the ones that I managed to get. This weekend, we're going to Martin's Cove with Aaron's family for Labor Day, so I'll get pictures then.



Jade already knows how to play the piano all by herself. She wrote this song.



On our first free weekend, we went to Jackson for the Art Fair and then had pizza. This was Jade's first piece of pizza (well, actually just the crust).


I just thought this was cute. For the most part she's really good at taking baths, until she decides she wants to bite the drain stopper...

She doesn't look very happy here but I don't have very many pictures of the two of us together.


Oh I love her! She's got tons of drool dripping off her chin.