Linnea Elanor Killpack

“...It is right it should be so

Man was made for Joy & Woe

And when this we rightly know

Thro the World we safely go

Joy & Woe are woven fine

A Clothing for the soul divine

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine

The Babe is more than swadling Bands

Throughout all these Human Lands…”

- William Blake

Where does one start to recount a life so pure – a life brought to an end so soon? I suppose I will start with broken things. Because I do not wish to end with the breaking. And, true to my craft, I should at least begin with the end in mind.

Our hearts.

Our pride.

Our daughter’s precious body.

Our hopes for all that Linnea’s life was meant to blossom into.

Linnea Elanor Killpack, daughter of Joshua and Anna Killpack, lived out her brief life with loving brothers and adoring parents in Smithfield, Utah. She was the victim of a tragic crash on May 12th – a few blocks down the road from the newly-built Smithfield Temple. Shards of glass and twisted metal testify to all that was broken that day. Little Linnea passed in the arms of her parents while receiving care at Primary Children’s Hospital.

In some ways, our experience learning about and expecting another child was a common one; in others, it was not. Linnea broke our planned timing for the growth of our family, along with our penchant for boy-making. We needed additional nurses on additional ultrasounds to confirm that we, in fact, were expecting a girl. She definitively broke the “Killpack curse,” and she was accounted as a gift and a miracle in our hearts and conversations. She was sent, or else she had elected, to join our little family precisely on December 30th, 2025. We felt that truth pierce us from the very beginning.

Perhaps the roots of her name will illuminate everything we, as her parents, saw and felt and hoped for in those early days. Linnea is a Swedish reference to a delicate, drooping twinflower. The regal Elanor was chosen after the brilliantly yellow, star-shaped flower blanketing the golden glades of Lothlorien in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The Sindarin translation is literally “sun star” – a promise of the celestial. Samwise Gamgee named his first daughter after this hope- and light-imbued flower in proper hobbit fashion. We chose to do the same.

“You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can’t, in

most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can’t get the

best out of it. 'Now! Let’s have a real good talk' reduces everyone to silence. 'I must get

a good sleep tonight' ushers in hours of wakefulness. Delicious drinks are wasted on a

really ravenous thirst. Is it similarly the very franticness of my need that impoverishes the memory?”

- C.S. Lewis

Time with our little sun star was too, too short. And, yet, it was not long before we struggled to remember what our lives had ever been like without her. Linnea Elanor lived for four and a half months, and she brought more light and more floral beauty into our lives in that brief time than we have ever known. As soon as she was placed in the caring laps of her three older brothers, she was their every adoration. Linnea was content, patient, forgiving, curious, cuddly, talkative, and so very happy.

It is difficult to lay out precisely how her presence will be most remembered. Her refined sense of humor was difficult to crack for Mom and Dad, but her brothers managed to pull her into hysterical laughter more than once. She had the kind of grip that never wavered, and she would hold fast to your finger as soon as she nestled her warm head against shoulder, neck, and cheek. She cooed and cackled and babbled endlessly, so long as someone was willing to respond. Her perfect contentment will ever be unmatched in baby-kind.

Linnea leaves behind three brothers, two parents, dozens of nurses and doctors, and countless family, friends, and neighbors who have all cared for, prayed for, and loved her. She will be laid to rest among beloved ancestors, and she is surely, even now, in the loving embrace of those angelic grandparents who have already passed into that distant Aidenn. There is balm in Gilead!

Linnea Elanor will ever beautify our lives and light our way to Christ. It is Christ who will bind up that which is broken. It is because of Him that Linnea will be forever bound to us. Her life will be restored, our hope will be restored, and the love we have for her will never be broken.

"There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam

saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out

of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the

thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:

there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

With love, my little sunstar,

- Dad

Linnea Elanor Killpack was born December 30, 2025, in Logan, Utah, lived out her days in Smithfield, Utah, and passed away at Primary Children’s Hospital early in the morning of May 14, 2026, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is survived by her parents, Joshua Stewart Killpack and Anna Christine Behling, and her three older brothers, whose names are Henry, Lawrence, and Isaac. Funeral services will be held Tuesday, May 26th, at 11:00AM. 

A viewing will be offered from 9:30AM - 10:30AM. Both viewing and funeral will be at the Smithfield chapel found at 155 West, 400 North, Smithfield, UT 84335. Linnea Elanor will be laid to rest in the Hyrum Cemetery.