‘Beautiful inside and out’: Pawleys Island fishing family honors wife, mom lost too soon

It was mid-August, and an early-morning thunderstorm halted Mark Smith’s fishing plans with his two sons out of Georgetown Landing Marina.

With a little patience and perseverance, Smith and his crew of six waited out the storm and two hours later were cast-netting menhaden at the entrance to Winyah Bay.

With plenty of large 6-to-8 inch baits in the live well, Smith headed out into the Atlantic Ocean aboard his 2007 28-foot Southport TE, Wound Tight, to a live-bottom area in 95 feet of water.

Smith specializes in offshore bottom fishing, and the bite was slow at the first stop. With the surface water temperature in the mid-80s, Smith headed to a deeper spot and found the fish aggregated in depths of 115-120 feet.

After dodging a few rain showers and dealing with some choppy seas early on, the sky turned partly cloudy and sea conditions tranquil about 35 miles offshore.

As the day wore on, the box wound up quite full with a six-person limit of vermilion snapper (beeliners) and assorted red porgy, white grunts, black sea bass, strawberry grouper, grey triggerfish and amberjack. The catch of the day was a scamp grouper in the 12-pound range.

As a fun, productive day fishing trip with family and friends came to a close, Smith kicked back at the helm and sipped on an iced tea on the ride home, reflecting on another memorable day on a beautiful Atlantic.

Life-changing tragedy

Smith, of Pawleys Island, takes his sons, 12-year-old Jack and 10-year-old Cullen, on as many fishing trips as he can fit into his busy schedule as owner/operator of JMS Constructors, LLC. The excursions have become much-needed therapy for the family of three.

Just two months earlier, on June 10, the family endured a life-changing tragedy. Smith’s wife of 13 years and the boys’ mother, Emily Turner Smith, passed away after a 17-month battle with a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer, Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM).

Emily’s fight with the disease had begun in early January 2019, when she noticed an issue with her right hand, beginning a traumatic period for the family.

“She woke up and her right hand wouldn’t cooperate,” said Mark Smith. “She couldn’t pick up a coffee cup, couldn’t make things work. We were thinking at her age it could be a stroke, could be an aneurysm. Could be carpal tunnel (syndrome). She could type 200 words a minute.”

A few days later a CT scan came back abnormal, and a follow-up MRI was scheduled. Mark Smith reflected on receiving the news of the abnormal CT scan.

“When the CT scan came back abnormal, I had this sinking feeling of what we were dealing with,” said Smith. “Call it intuition, call it God telling me “OK, this is what’s going to go on.”

The MRI revealed a brain tumor on January 16, 2019, and Emily had surgery the next day. Two weeks later, the Smiths received the pathology report that the tumor was Glioblastoma Multiforme.

The couple was already familiar with GBM, since Emily’s stepbrother, of no blood relation, had endured it for over four years before passing away in 2017.

“We weren’t unfamiliar with Gliobastoma,” said Smith. “We had an indication of what this was. We knew what kind of battle we were facing.”

The harsh reality was the family had to come to grips with knowing that Emily, a kind, caring, devoted mother and wife, had limited time left.

“I knew after the surgery I had less than two years with Emily,” said Smith. “It flips your world completely on end. Most people that get the diagnosis don’t understand what they’re dealing with. Because of her stepbrother, we knew exactly what we were dealing with. You go into panic mode because life as you knew it just ended. Everything’s completely different. You run through every through emotion, you will make every bargain with God.

“Anticipatory grief is when you have a loss coming, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s hard to accept and you start grieving before anything happens. You grieve because you see the changes, you grieve because you know what’s coming and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Emily began the process of radiation therapy and chemotherapy and then enrolled in a clinical trial at Duke University.

“Things were going pretty well,” said Smith.

With Emily able to travel, the Smiths took a family vacation in July 2019 to Florida, visiting Savannah, Ga., St. Augustine, Cape Canaveral and the Florida Keys.

“It kind of gelled in my head one night that people (in this situation) need to make memories, because once it turns bad, it turns bad,” said Smith. “There’s no turning back.”

Two months later, a new tumor was discovered, the first of a series of new tumors that developed in Emily’s brain over the next six months.

“In March (2020), we got the bad news that the cancer wasn’t being stopped by the chemo,” said Smith. “You’re talking about a woman who had three degrees and was CFO of a $50 million a year company. By March, she couldn’t add 1 plus 1 or 2 plus 2. It’s a very nasty disease.”

The family was offered one more treatment plan, with the caveat of very bad side effects, and they declined.

“At that point we had to decide whether to try it or to call in hospice and preserve what quality of life she had,” said Smith. “She was given four weeks without the chemotherapy, five weeks with the chemotherapy, so it wasn’t much difference. Emily ended up passing away on June 10.”

Smith has taken meaning from the letters, GBM, the initials of the disease that took his wife’s life.

“I like to take the acronym, because Glioblastoma is known as GBM, and say God Broke Me, and then God Blessed Me,” said Smith. “Because of her and the love she spread throughout this community, I’ve been able to take that and make something out of it. She loved everybody. You never got a cross word from her. The only way you would ever get on her bad side is if you threatened me or those children.

“She always wanted to help people, she always had a smile on her face. She was one of those people that was beautiful inside and out. I was lucky enough she chose me to marry me.”

The Smiths sons, Jack and Cullen, were left without their mother at a young age.

“They’ve had to grow up a lot. And they have seen some things that they never should have seen,” said Smith. “Somebody suffering from Glioblastoma, the end phase is not pretty, there’s nothing dignified in it. They saw their mother slowly turn into a vegetable. They had to pitch in and do a lot more than kids at 12 and 10 normally have to do. We told them straight up what was going on and we stayed honest with them throughout the entire ordeal.

“So they were prepared and they have dealt with it I would say very well. We have keep them engaged, hunting and fishing, with me as much as possible. Kids are resilient, they’ve done very well.”

Smith was inclined to sell his boat when his wife was fighting GBM, but she insisted he keep it.

“I’d offered to sell the boat but (Emily) said ‘I want you to have that boat. Because if I’m gone, I want you to make memories with those two boys that last them their life,’” said Smith. “I want you to enjoy yourself because I’ve seen you on a boat. I’ve seen what great pleasure it gives you to go out and fish and how relaxed and how different you are from the stresses of life when you come back.

“So we kept the boat. She made me promise that after she was gone and after we got everything settled, that I would fish as much as I could. I think she said to me “You need it, you deserve it and it will make you human again.”

Soon, Smith reflected on his ordeal while caring for Emily, when he occasionally didn’t sleep for up to 72 hours at a time.

Through all the hospitals, doctors offices and treatment rooms, he met numerous patients of GBM, and another aggressive brain cancer, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), that mainly affects children. He wanted to help those patients and their families while battling the two forms of cancer and, at the same time, honor Emily.

“I started thinking what can I do?” said Smith. “How can I take this person’s legacy who always put us first, always loved everybody - people would fall in love with this woman five minutes after they met her because she’s just that kind of person. What can I do?”

Soon, the Emily Smith Foundation, or Emily’s House, was created.

“I took the thought and I came up with the name, Emily’s House, because she’s always welcomed people into her home,” said Smith. “Never a stranger, you felt at home when you came into this house, she made you feel that way.

“What we’re going to do is we’re going to bring people to our town, our beach, we’re going to give them a free week, we’re going to provide meals. We’ll do whatever we can do to help that family and those people make memories with their loved ones while they can.”

‘Gracious donors’

Emily’s House depends on donors to provide lodging, food, activities and other amenities for the visiting cancer patients and their families.

“We have gracious donors,” said Smith. “We have people who own beach houses on Pawleys Island that are donating those houses for the week. They will stay there and we’ll provide meals, I’ll take them fishing or on a river cruise, they can go to Brookgreen (Garden) or they can sit on the back porch looking at the ocean.”

Now, Smith is consumed with operating his construction business, raising his two sons in their Pawleys Island home and building Emily’s House in his wife’s honor. And working in as many fishing trips as possible aboard Wound Tight out of Georgetown Landing Marina.

“One day at a time, one step at a time, one prayer at a time. That’s the way we live around here,” said Smith. “I guess you can say we learned life can change in an instant. (I’ve) never been one for pity or sorrow, I truly believe my faith has deepened, my resilience has deepened.

“I know she’s looking down on top of us and she’s my biggest cheerleader. I know she’s listening every step of the way every day. I can’t hug her, I can’t kiss her, I can’t talk to her and I can’t hear her voice. But I know every day I’ll get through it, and those two boys of mine will grow up to be what they should be.”

To donate

For more information visit: https://theemilysmithfoundation.org/ or https://www.facebook.com/TheEmilySmithFoundation