Bea Smart's Guestbook and Photos

Set the Table, a poem by Melinda Pearce for Bea, read at her Memorial:

A dozen eggs in the coconut cake
The delicious smell of chicken enchiladas

Passion and excitement in every thing you make
Hey clever lady

So observant, bringing the symphony to us
Do you hear it?

The beautiful tanned blond said
You must stop and listen to their music

She is gifted, a unique kind
For the music is the harmony of the katydids

Adding the cream to the spinach
Just a pinch of nutmeg

Did you hear that splash?
See the beautiful fin

How many Royal Doulton place settings did you say?
Twelve, thirteen, or fourteen

Let's add another table
Red roses from the garden, aye?

Strong in your spirit, but tender in your heart
Serving a French Beaujolais

Artistic paintings up the stairwells
Clever, creative and remarkably smart

Mixing avocados in the California spa salad
Filling the cream tangerine tart

The lovely mermaid Bea is gracing the sea
She is wearing a grass skirt and belly dancing with glee

Chilling the ice wine
And all is fine.

Beatrice,

I took care of you in the ICU and transferred you to a regular nursing unit. When I last saw you, you were talking on the phone, smiling and laughing. I didn't even have a full 12 hour shift with you and I still think about you. You read me some poems and were supposed to email them to me when you were discharged from the hospital. I waited and waited for an email that would never come. I found out that you had passed away (several months later) and I want you to know that you are one of the patients I have never forgotten and will never forget. You told me about your family, your battle with cancer. It was an honor to meet you. I only knew you for several hours and you touched my life. I am very happy to find this site and your poems, but I am very sad that you passed away. I know you are in a better place where cancer cannot cause you pain.

Wow....thanks for making this available to all cancer survivors.....Cindy

Hi Bea.

I still miss you and think about you all of the time. Whenever I get down on myself or am feeling troubled I just squinch my nose, grab the air with my fists and squeal. I find a juicy part of life to be excited about just like what I know you would have done. Then nothing else matters. But it's a lot cuter to watch you do it.

love always,
jennifer

Thanks for this site-

I've really been poring over these poems by Bea Smart. Beautiful stuff.

A guy I know, JimBob Pellitteri, told me about Bea and about these poems. I lost a little brother to cancer (he was age 6, I was 7) and the thought of having these poems of Bea's life and struggles with cancer out in the world to be shared --and JimBob's interest and stand for Bea to get them out before her death-- was very moving to me.

Honestly, I would like to compose music to some of these poems and would like to get permission to do so, to perform and even record them.

If someone checks on this site regularly, please get in touch with me as soon as possible at my email address or at (310) 621-9803.

Thanks and Thanks again,

Jeff

Our deepest sympathy to the family and indeed the friends of Bea. We sometimes feel that the loss of a loved one is all too much for us, but God knows what He is doing and will not put more on us than we can handle. We shouldn't cry or feel sad when God calls his children home but rejoice because we know that we will meet them again in a place where pain is not known and sorrows are far away. Bea's passing is a reminder to us of the fragility of life and how we must show our love for people while they can appreciate it. Dry your tears and clear your heart of sorrow, for dark is the night but joy comes in the morning.

God looked around and saw the beauty of heaven and wanted to put that beauty into a form that mankind could relate to. So he called the a scientist but his words were too calculating. He called on a chef but his ingredients didn't quite have the right flavor. God even called a preacher but his testimony was too judgmental. So finally God called a poet, He called Bea and with her words she captured heavens beauty so well that God said " I think I'll hold on to you." You see God Doesn't settle, He only picks the best for the job. Bea was the best. Now she's writing the poetry of the heavens.

R.I.P Bea. We loved you but God loves you best.

One of my fondest memories was visting cousin Bea and her family in California in 1973. Myself and 2 other friends were still in University and we drove to California in an old beat up ford. Bea made us feel really welcomed and showed us a great time. Bea accomplished many admirable things in her life. She was very creative and had lots of great ideas. She did a great job of helping Aunt Bea. She will be turly missed.

Dear Bea,

You have been an inspiration to me like no other patient. In my 28 years practicing medicine I don't believe I've met anyone as brave and determined as you. You have the fight in you like a heavyweight champ and more. You have endured so much. Breast cancer 3 times, melanoma and then the fibrosarcoma in the spine.

And you have handled it all with your usual class and grace. You chose not to feel sorry for yourself but to use your amazing mind to have a relationship with your cancer that is a template for how it should be done. And the book Sometimes You Dance the Monster will help so many other who do not have the creativity and intellect to understand how to deal with cancer like you.

I met your MRI of the pelvis before I met you. I diagnosed the chronic insufficiency fractures in your pelvis and called your doctor and suggested we do a sacroplasty and fix those fractures with bone cement. This had never been done before at Torrance Medical Center. The doctor didn't even know what the procedure but she did a little research on the internet and called me and said that sounds like a great idea.

We met and discussed it and you said let's go for it. Fortunately the procedure was a success and for the first time in a year, you could walk without pain and without feeling and hearing the bones moving and crunching in your pelvis.

You were so grateful and you gave me a very special gift to show your appreciation and I explained to you that your recovery was all the gift I needed, I told you that I was grateful to have the honor a taking care of a patient like you.

And it is so ironic that your breast cancer treatment was ultimately worse than the disease itself.

The broken bones in the pelvis resulted from damage caused by the radiation therapy for breast cancer. And the fibrosarcoma in the spine was induced by the radiation therapy.

But you were a survivor not a victim and managed, regardless of your illness to focus outward and not inward. You beamed with love and pride when you spoke to me about your children and your grandchildren. They were all so lucky to have you in their lives for as long as they did. They will all be better people as arel just about everyone who ever knew you.

We kept in touch by email and phone conversation over the years and when you developed that new spine lesion on the PET scan you called me to try to help you. We injected cement into that fracture too but more importantly I did a biopsy and found that it wasn't recurrent breast cancer like the doctors thought but was fibrosarcoma.

You oncologist wrote you off. You have a few months left, no treatment available.

But I referred you to the sarcoma group at UCLA and your tumor surprisingly responded to chemotherapy. So much for that oncologist. Like you said, he sucker punched you but you got up and kept on going.

And then you told the spine surgeons to cut out the remaining tumor. An ambitious operation would be the understatement of the century. You would have several vertebrae removed and the involved soft tissue next to the spine too. This would all have to come out as one piece, so called en bloc resection, to have any hope of a cure. And it was a risky operation, you could be paralyzed if it didn't go just right.

And I'll never forget what you told the doctors, you said you didn't care if the operation resulted in you being just a talking head, you wanted to live. You wanted to be there for your family, for those beautiful grandchildren. And indeed you convinced them to do the operation.

A person half your age would have trouble surviving such an operation but you were no ordinary patient. And those doctors at UCLA probably had never laid eyes on someone so brave, resolute and strong as you.

And the recovery was very tough and painful, but you used mind over matter or should I say more accurately mind over pain. No complaint from you when we spoke, you described the pain and I suggested you try pain medication but you weren't about to have your mind fogged by medication. It wasn't the right time for that.

You wanted to swim in the ocean; one of the loves of your life. You had a beautiful view of your Pacific Ocean from your home but a much better view during your regular ocean swims, not to mention you and your fellow polar bear club members swimming in very, very cold ocean water every New Year's Day. I'm sure it was cold but you could control that with your mind, for most of us we would have hyperthermia. Mind over matter, a recurrent theme.

And I loved the ocean too. We spoke so many times of the sea, your visits to Hawaii and my surfing as a high-schooler in the 60's and a sailor since college days at UCLA.

You know some people think that there is not much difference between a Canadian and an American. They couldn't be more wrong. I married a Canadian as you know and we chatted often about the differences. And in most cases, you Canadians have us in the States beat hands down. And by that I mean you are so much more down to earth. Not impressed by materialism. Relationships with people meant more than relationships with objects.

OK you loved to drive a nice care like a shinny Jaguar, but that wasn't to impress others, you just like a nice car.

And after the big surgery, when we had hoped you were cured, you developed a recurrence in the spine and it spread up and down your spinal cord and nerves inside the spinal canal. It is called meningeal carcinomatosis for the record.

And you knew there was the Gamma Knife and intrathecal chemotherapy and without these you would soon be paralyzed from the chest down. But you knew when to say enough is enough. You could have endured these treatments and been given more time but you told me it was time to show your children how to die with dignity. And that you did. You accepted hospice and morphine for the pain. And you opened your home, literally unlocked the front door and asked anyone and everyone to visit and celebrate your life with you. You weren't frightened, whimpering with self pity. You somehow, someway embraced the opportunity and made the best of it.

The last time we spoke, was on the phone just before the party on Saturday. I couldn't attend because of my trip out of town. I'm so glad to have visited you in your home just prior and we talked for a long time and I had the pleasure of meeting your three lovely and very special children. All of them have parts of you in them. One is a thinker just like you, one loves the outdoors just like you and one is artistic just like you.

We'll we spoke on the phone for that last time and we had a very upbeat talk. However I did finally say, we are really going to miss each other and you agreed. And I already do. But just like I told your children, I'm very fortunate to have known you as long as I did. You made an indelible impression on me that will be with me for the rest of my days. And you have helped me be a better doctor for all of my patients because I saw how one could prevail over adverse circumstances if you put your mind to it in just the right way. You can say it was just common sense, but to me common sense is a genius in overalls. That was you, everything except the overalls.

I believe we loved each other in a very special way. Not romantically but much more fundamentally. We developed a deep respect, trust and regard for one another over the years, like great friends. We accepted each other unconditionally and wanted the best for the other.

I know you are a woman of faith and if there is a heaven, I'm sure that is where you are and showing the rest of them by example how to do it with class and dignity.

I miss you but I'm relieved you are finally at peace and in a better place.

My best regards,

Joel Garris MD

Aunt Bea. It seems after reading these incredibly heartfelt messages, Bea was everyone's Aunt Bea (in one sense or another). Mother, grandmother, aunt, friend etc. Bea was a woman who had so much love, wisdom and whimsical thoughts to share. Bea became my "Aunt Bea" when I was lucky enough to spend a summer with the Smart family - the Buttner's and Smart's were very good friends, and knew I was in excellent hands. I will never forget learning about: scorpions in your bed, tarantulas, oscar fish feedings and hunting rattlesnakes with bows and arrows right across from the house - which of course, she made some sort of soup from! This all happened when I was nine - needless to say, I am much older now and that woman has always kept in touch; with love, inspiration and a smile to life. E.John, Paul and Leslie - I am so glad I was able to share such an incredible woman with you!
xo Lara B

Missing you always, dear cousin.