IndyStar is documenting Chase and Sadie Smith's lives as they settle into a new marriage and battle Chase's terminal cancer.
Her family always called Sadie Smith the ultimate homebody. She was never one to be out and about, hatching plans with friends for parties or taking the latest guy up on an offer for a date.
She studied. She practiced diving. And she studied and practiced diving. For fun, she crashed on her family's Mooresville couch or in her bedroom. Her younger brother Cannon would tease her about having no life.
Sassy Sadie, as her family called her from the time she could toddle, would get right back in his face.
Jesus. Family. Diving. School. That was the order Sadie listed her priorities. And she was proud of that.
Then one night last winter, Sadie came home from a swim meet.
"Hey, I talked to that guy from last year," she told her mom Jessica Mills. He asked for her number. They would probably be going out on a date, Sadie said with a look Jessica hadn't seen from her middle child.
Sadie was a homebody no more.
From that first date with Chase Smith, the two never spent more than 24 hours apart. Sadie made a new list.
Jesus. Chase. Family. Diving. School.
"Everything changed," said Jessica. "And I said to her, 'Sadie, I think this is great but you never wanted to be away from home or anything.'"
Sadie looked her mom in the eyes: "Well, Chase is home. He feels like home."
Chase: She leave me 'speechless'
Sadie graduated from Mooresville High recently. Chase couldn't be there because he was too sick. Sadie didn't want to leave him, but family and friends encouraged her.
She will turn 19 on Aug. 9, yet the journey she has been on the past months has been filled with enough joy, tears and battles for a lifetime.
She and Chase married April 29, six months after they started dating. The first date almost didn't happen. After talking for days, Chase told Sadie he was too busy to go out that weekend due to swim meets and an SAT to take.
Sadie told Chase if he really wanted to see her, he'd make time. "I wasn't going to waste my time," Sadie said.
The marriage ceremony took place on the driveway of Sadie's parents' home where the two teens had shared their first kiss.
Since then, Sadie has been by Chase's side as he faces terminal cancer, the same Ewing's sarcoma he's fought since he was 13.
Chase made it clear when he met Sadie. Cancer had been part of his life and it might be again. There was always the possibility he would relapse.
"I told him that it didn't matter to me and it does not define him as a person," Sadie said. "I fell in love with the person that he is and I told him that I'd be by his side through it all if it ever happened again."
In April, scans revealed the cancer was back and tumors had invaded his entire body. Chase was given three to five months to live. The two had already told each other they wanted to marry one day. Why not now, they said. Why waste another moment apart.
"Just knowing the man Chase is, it is a blessing to have him in your life no matter what," Sadie said. "And I would never pass up the opportunity to marry him and spend my life with him."
The past three months of marriage, Sadie has been to every doctor's appointment, even when she wasn't allowed in the hospital due to COVID-19. She would sit in the car in the parking garage on Facetime with Chase.
Sadie knows Chase's mom, Kelli, needs to be at all the appointments. But she believes she should be allowed too, and she has made that clear -- so clear that Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health has made exceptions at some appointments to let Sadie come in.
"I mean I'm his wife," she said. "And I'm having to sit outside and not be able to be there with him."
Being with Chase is really all Sadie wants right now. She has spent hours lying beside him on days his pain was too much to handle.
They've been on trips to the beach, eaten pans of cinnamon rolls in bed together and for a while were on a kick where they would stay up into the wee hours of the morning eating pizza rolls and Chase's favorite -- buttery noodles with salt and pepper.
And they pray together. Every night before they go to sleep and every morning when they wake up.
Having Sadie by his side as he fights his toughest battle with cancer, Chase says, has been the blessing of his life.
"It makes me speechless every time I talk about it," Chase said. "Having someone be able to do what she does on a daily basis is remarkable. She is able to calm me down and soothe me when nobody else can and give me the smile and give me the happiness when I'm down and nobody else can put that smile on my face. People describe her as my angel."
Sassy Sadie
She was born Sydney LeeAnn Mills in August 2001 to Jeff and Jessica Mills. Jessica had wanted to name her Sadie, but Jeff wasn't a fan. The two agreed on Sydney.
The moment she was put in her arms, Jessica said that baby girl just looked like a Sadie. Jessica never called her anything else. The rest of the family followed and soon Sydney was nothing more than legalese on a birth certificate.
Sadie fit her personality just perfectly, said Jeff.
"We called her sassy Sadie when she was young. She's always been precocious," he said. "If you challenge Sadie, she'll fire back. She'll bite back."
When the family would play Wiffle Ball, "Sadie would clothesline you," said Jeff. One birthday, all Sadie wanted was to play a family basketball game.
"I'll never fall for that again," said Jessica. Sadie went hard on defense. The game got quite intense.
Sadie's grit is great for the marriage because Chase is feisty, too. One night before Chase got his new diagnosis, he and Sadie were playing Monopoly at the Millses' home.
"I was just cracking up because those two, they were going at it," said Jeff. "It was the most competitive Monopoly game I'd ever seen. Sadie met her match with Chase."
Underneath her spunk, Sadie has a soft side, said Jessica. When she was little, she always was concerned whether Santa Claus would get a gift at Christmas. It was only fair, Sadie would tell her mom, since he was bringing everyone else presents.
"She was so worried," said Jessica. "We did the cookies. We did the milk. I just had to tell her every year, 'Santa is going to get a gift. Don't worry about Santa. Santa wants you to enjoy Christmas.'"
That genuine, raw kindness and concern has been good for Chase in his battle with cancer, said Chase's oncologist Dr. Melissa K. Bear, with Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health. And so has her fierce loyalty.
"Sadie is so sweet," said Bear. "She hasn't been on this journey with him all these years. So this is new to her, so she gives him that new hope and fight. She is like, 'You can beat this.'"
An elite athlete from the time she was tiny, fight has always been in Sadie. And now Chase's fight is hers.
"She's so driven and now the drive that she has is giving him every ounce of the love that she has," said Jessica. "That's what brings the happiness out in her. Fighting for Chase."
An athlete from the start
Jeff and Jessica joked that Sadie was doing crunches when she was four weeks old. She would try to sit up as a newborn.
By the time she was 3 and taking gymnastics, coaches started talking to Jeff and Jessica about sending Sadie away for training, putting her on the path to being an elite gymnast with an eye on the Olympics.
The Millses said no to that. But they kept Sadie and her older sister, Savanna, on the competitive path. In 13 years, the two climbed to Level 9 gymnasts, just one below the highest level.
Sadie won multiple individual and team state championships, including the Indiana Level 9 floor routine state champion. She was selected for Team Indiana as a Level 8 and Level 9 gymnast.
When Sadie was 14, Savanna cracked her orbital bone at practice doing a flyaway off the bars. The injury was serious and it scared Savanna. She retired. Soon after, Sadie was done, too.
Her freshman year, she decided to give diving a try and all those years of gymnastics translated into success. During her sophomore season, Sadie was the IHSAA regional champion and placed 16th at state. She finished out her senior diving season Academic All-State, All-State and third in state.
She earned a full-ride to IUPUI for Division I diving and it went beyond her athletic prowess, said Jeff.
When coach Eric Barnes first started recruiting Sadie he told Jeff he loved Sadie's demeanor on deck and how, if she made a mistake, it was onto the next dive.
She starts this fall at IUPUI and will major in elementary education. She scheduled her classes so she can be home with Chase in the evenings after practice.
"She won't accept defeat and that's why it's perfect for Chase," said Jeff. "She will encourage him and make him even more of a fighter than he already is."
Loving Chase
When Chase was told he had three to five months to live, Sadie called her dad crying. Jeff is an attorney and, through her tears, Sadie asked her dad to start a foundation to help raise money for Ewing's sarcoma research.
"I was hysterical. I was just praying a lot," said Sadie. "I just trusted in God throughout the whole thing but it initially was really hard to hear."
As she and Chase talked about getting married sooner rather than later, Sadie never doubted that decision. She may have been a senior in high school but she didn't worry for one moment what people thought about it.
"I love that she doesn't feel like she needs to explain herself and what she needs to do to make herself happy," said Jessica. "She just does it."
Her parents noticed in the wedding photos how Sadie is clinging so tightly to Chase. Chase's parents noticed the way he's looking at Sadie.
"We see how Sadie has completed Chase," said his dad Brad Smith.
The homebody who worried about missing a tenth of a point on a test or on a dive has relaxed since she met Chase. His battle, their battle, has taught Sadie to live, said Jessica. To smile and to laugh and to take a break.
"Sadie will pour her heart and soul into everything she does," said Jeff. "Right now, that's loving Chase."
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
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Chase and Sadie: Sadie's story - The Indianapolis Star
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