‘Good to her core’: U-High student Bella Jackson-Fleming, granddaughter of Spokane Valley softball pioneer Sally Jackson, dies at 16

Known for her spunk and unapologetic “alpha female” energy, University High School junior Bella Jackson-Fleming died unexpectedly on Nov. 11 in her Spokane Valley home. She was 16.

Bella died of respiratory failure after anaphylactic shock, her father Casey Jackson said, likely from a medication she was taking.

Bella was the granddaughter of activist and softball coach Sally Jackson, who founded the Spokane Valley Girls Softball Association in 1967 and led a life advocating politically for women, civil rights, workers and the LGBTQ+ community.

Anyone could see Bella was cut from the same cloth as her Grandma Sal, said Casey Jackson, Bella’s father and son to Sally.

“From the minute she was born, she was just a force,” he said.

Bella carried her grandmother’s spirit after Sally died in 2020. Bella’s boldness and wit were unmistakable traits anyone could notice , but Casey Jackson said what reminded him most of his mother was Bella’s genuine zest for life. She was compelled to try everything, feel every emotion and not wait around to do so.

“She felt like she had to,” Casey Jackson said. “As long as she was in human form, she needed to feel what it was like to be hurt and to cry and to be joyful.”

Bella is survived by her fathers, Casey Jackson and Matt Fleming, and her fraternal twin sister, Lilah Jackson-Fleming. The couple had their girls through a surrogate, mixing genetics from each side of their families.

“It was an honor to be her parent for those 16 years,” Fleming said. “… She lived more in her 16 years than honestly most people live in 80.”

Raised in a family of athletes, there was no question Bella would pick up sports. Softball was a given, but she also played soccer, basketball, volleyball and even varsity baseball with the boys at Horizon Middle School.

“When she made the team, the boys were pissed,” Casey Jackson said. “They were not happy, really not happy, and none of the boys would play catch with her.”

She wasted no time proving herself, throwing a player out at second base in her first game. When she got up to bat, she hit a double.

“All of a sudden, all the boys are hanging on the fence screaming for her,” Casey Jackson said.

Bella was equally respected by her teammates and feared by her opponents. She loved the attention, her dads said.

“It just drove the other teams crazy, because they couldn’t intimidate her and they couldn’t beat her,” Casey Jackson said.

She stopped playing softball in her junior year after an injury, taking up a job at Papa Murphy’s six months ago. She was wise beyond her years, and her fathers could see her quickly maturing in those months, always telling them how grateful and lucky she was to have them.

“She was just ready to level up that next level of who she’s meant to be,” Casey Jackson said. “That’s part of the reason it was so rough, is she just was on this amazing path.”

Through her tough, “alpha female” persona, Bella had a tender side – one of enduring generosity with friends, her sister and complete strangers.

On one occasion, Fleming recalls she spontaneously invited a pair of homeless teenagers she met at Winco to her family’s house. She shared food, gave away her new pair of Nikes and bought them a bus ticket to Montana.

“I’m not that good, but she was good,” Fleming said. “Good to her core.”

Bella was born moments before her twin sister, who their fathers described as the yang to Bella’s yin. Bella was the extrovert of the pair, while Lilah is shy, drawn to art and sports like golf and tennis, as Bella kept up softball.

“Where Bella helped Lilah with her confidence and social graces, Lilah softened Bella,” Fleming said. “I loved seeing that in my girls; it was a yin and yang thing.”

The twins were “intertwined” all through their 16 years together. While they had different social circles at school, at home they were linked: crafting, watching television, constant runs to Starbucks or Taco Bell.

“There was everything we could trust each other with,” Lilah wrote. “We would lie for each other, take the blame for each other, fight for each other. Ever since we were kids, I wouldn’t leave her side.”

Bella was an unrelenting protector of her twin; she didn’t let any slight to Lilah go unpunished.

“Hell hath no fury like Bella scorned; she would just eliminate, annihilate anyone who would hurt her sister,” Fleming said. “They had this safety in each other that I loved to watch.”

Even through the loss of his “doll,” “girly girl” and “best friend,” Fleming described an unexplainable sense of peace he can only attribute to the thousands of prayers sent from the many people Bella left her mark on.

“She was my person, for sure,” Fleming said. “That’s a loss I’m going to have to live with, but it’s also this blessing that I had.”

He’s also comforted by Bella’s enduring presence. He still talks to her in his head, and explained a few moments of spontaneous, Bella-like generosity in the days since her death.

“I hear her in my head, I get these overwhelming gut feelings that I need to do something, and I really feel like I need to honor that for her,” he said. “Like, ‘I got you girl; you need something, I’ll give it to you.’ ”

Casey Jackson felt his daughter the strongest at a recent appointment to get his back waxed. Bella planned to operate her own aesthetician business after college.

His waxer that day was charming with a quick wit; she reminded Casey Jackson of Bella.

“She ripped one, and then I could feel Bella giggling, and kind of clicking her fingernails together, going, ‘Oh my God, I love this,’ ” Casey Jackson said.

He told his aesthetician of the loss of his daughter and that he could feel her glee with each painful yank of the wax strip. After another rip, the waxer could feel her, too.

Since she had career ambitions in the same business, the waxer had a thought.

“The gal said, ‘You know, I’ve never wanted to have a partner, but you think it’d be OK if I asked Bella to be my partner for the rest of my career?’ Which just made me sob,” Casey Jackson said.

He plans to have Bella’s ashes turned into pieces of glass-blown art to give to loved ones. He’s saving a piece to give to the waxer to display in her studio in honor of her posthumous partner.

“Here’s a total stranger. I told her that. I said, ‘You gave me one thing that nobody else could give us, and it came from your heart. That is the sweetest thing,’ ” Casey Jackson said. “So Bella wanted to be an aesthetician, and now she’s going to work with this gal for the rest of her career.”

Bella’s family has planned a celebration of life at Ponderosa Elementary School, where she spent her early years. The service is 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 29. In lieu of flowers, Bella’s family is asking for donations to the Spokane Valley Girls Softball Association.