How a South Carolina Gamecocks cornerback keeps the memory of his sister alive
South Carolina cornerback Cam Smith peers down at the chain dangling around his neck.
In the center of the medallion resting on his chest is a photo of an infant donning a white T-shirt and yellow pants. The child holds her right hand in a fist as her puffy, newborn cheeks protrude from her youthful face.
Seated at a plastic table inside the Jerri and Steve Spurrier Indoor Practice Facility during the South Carolina’s in-house media day on Aug. 5, Cam clasps the chain with each of his thumbs and positions it for a TV camera.
“This is my little sister,” he said of the image surrounded by a circle of diamonds. “She died when I was 6.”
Gabrielle Smith, or “Gabbie,” was born on Oct. 4, 2005. She died less than three months later. The doctors attributed her passing to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
SIDS, at its core, leaves doubt. The Mayo Clinic defines it as “the unexplained death, usually during sleep, of a seemingly healthy baby less than a year old.”
That’s the part that hurts the most. The not knowing. The wishing you could’ve helped.
It’s why Cam — who had a daughter of his own during the offseason — and his family keep Gabbie’s memory close.
“A part of you dies,” Alicia Smith, Cam and Gabbie’s mother, said. “And it’s a space that never fills.”
‘I can hear the people screaming’
A preschooler’s memories fade with time. It’s part of aging. But there are pieces of Gabbie’s short life that remain seared into Cam’s mind.
He remembers the nights laying on his bunk bed in Mullins with his infant sister. Cam always wanted to sleep alongside Gabbie. Even at 5 years old, he felt a responsibility to watch over her.
Cam chuckles as he recalls the day he fell off his bed, prompting Alicia to run into the room in panic. She thought it was Gabbie who’d plunked down against the hardwood floor. Alicia sighed in relief when she found Cam sitting on the ground instead.
“That’s probably the best memory I have,” Cam said, cracking a wry smile.
Gabbie was born three weeks premature, but didn’t show any signs of long term effects. Doctors monitored her digestive system and breathing at first to ensure she’d be fine once taken home, though that was the extent of it.
Gabbie’s earliest days were normal. She cried some. She slept some. She smiled plenty.
Jan. 3, 2006 was one of those normal days.
Prepping for a 2 p.m. pediatrician appointment, Alicia placed Gabbie in her crib for a nap. She then left to take a shower, change clothes and fix her hair before heading to the doctor.
Minutes later, Alicia walked back toward the crib. Gabbie wasn’t breathing.
“I can hear the people screaming,” Alicia said.
The rest of the day blends together. Alicia’s husband, Kendrick, raced into the room. So too did her father-in-law. The Smiths’ next-door neighbor — a nurse — came over. Paramedics were called.
Gabbie was eventually transported to Marion Medical Center, where doctors continued to work on her.
An hour after Gabbie arrived, Kendrick left the back room and entered the waiting area where Alicia, her mother and a handful of relatives sat together.
Tears rushed down Kendrick’s face. His lips quivered.
“They said there’s nothing they can do,” Kendrick said. “She’s gone.”
The grieving process
The days that followed Gabbie’s death were blurred.
Relatives came to the house to play cards and trade stories. Meals were provided. Alicia, Kendrick and Cam danced with friends and family in hopes of lessening the grief that had latched onto their souls.
Gabbie was laid to rest three days after her death. The chapel at the Troy Johnson Funeral Home was packed to the brim. People spilled out of the pews and into the aisles.
Alicia and Kendrick put on brave faces. They tried their damnedest to remain strong in the face of struggle.
Cam was told Gabbie wasn’t coming back, but the realities of death only resonate so much with a 6-year-old.
“Just to see that pain that (my parents) went through,” he said, pausing briefly before mumbling through the rest of his thought. “I don’t know. It messed me up in a certain way.”
Tragedy brings people out of the woodwork. Everyone wants to help at the moment of conflict. It’s the weeks and months that follow that become excruciating. When the food donations and daily visits end, families are forced to soldier on.
A loneliness crept into the Smith household after Gabbie’s funeral. The check-up calls became more intermittent. The visitors were scattered and less frequent.
About a week after Gabbie’s funeral, Alicia began packing boxes of Gabbie’s belongings. Some mementos stayed. Other pieces were donated.
Alicia had spent weeks confronting her grief with a brave face. The cracks were there. They finally ripped open.
Alicia knocked over a handful of boxes and collapsed to the floor. She erupted into tears. She didn’t stop for two hours.
“I felt like just breaking down and no longer being strong was me kind of giving up,” Alicia conceded. “But in the end, it was the release I needed for my heart to say, ‘I know, she’s OK. I know it’s going to be all right.’ ”
Remembering Gabbie at South Carolina
Cam slides up the left sleeve of his black, team-issued Under Armour shirt to reveal an arm covered in ink. Tucked inside the varying patterns and messages is one that protrudes prominently from the other art needled into his skin.
Written in cursive lettering on his left forearm is the word “Gabbie.” It’s the first tattoo he ever had done. Alicia has a similar one on her upper right arm that reads, “Gabrielle.”
Cam’s tattoo draws double-meaning these days. He became a single dad to his daughter, Oakleigh, on June 23.
Toying with name ideas before Oakleigh’s birth, Cam thought of his late sister. “Gabrielle” made for the perfect middle name.
“It’s that one thing we all share together — the pain from (Gabbie’s death),” Cam said, referencing his parents. “So I felt like it was my duty in making it this far ... that I’m supposed to carry on the legacy.”
During South Carolina’s picture day, Cam posed with Oakleigh seated in his lap. Donning his garnet USC jersey and football pants, Cam grinned toward the camera as Oakleigh stared up into his eyes, mouth wide open with an ear-to-ear smile across her face.
“It’s just making sure to stay on top of everything and make sure that I think twice before every decision,” he said. “Because the consequences don’t just affect you. It affects her, too.”
‘We don’t ever think we’ll have to bury a child’
The scars of Gabbie’s passing persisted in the months after the funeral.
When her second son, Amarian, was born, Alicia didn’t sleep. She watched over him each and every night for four months. The thought of leaving him for even three seconds left her afraid she’d return to another unresponsive infant.
“I think that’s the hardest part as a parent is that we worry about leaving our kids here when we’re gone,” Alicia said, “but we don’t ever think we’ll have to bury a child.”
Cam, Alicia and Kendrick take increasing solace in Gabbie’s life as the years pass. Sadness has been replaced with celebrations. Anguish is traded out for regaling Amarian and Kaiden — Cam’s two younger siblings born after Gabbie’s death — about the sister they never knew.
Oakleigh, too, will learn about her namesake when the time is right.
Anniversaries are still hard. The Smiths always try to do something as a family on Gabbie’s birthday. One year, it was releasing balloons into the sky. Other years it’s visiting her gravestone in Mullins to polish it from wear and tear.
It’s all part of a grieving process that, on some level, never really ends. It evolves.
In Cam, that process persists in the ink on his forearm. It continues in the photo hanging around his neck. It lives on in the daughter he welcomed into the world almost two months ago.
“She’s a constant part of everything that we do and we kind of strive to be better because she’s not here,” Alicia said. “To us, she’s looking down and she’s like, ‘You did good.’ ”
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
