Before the long hospital stay, the week-and-a-half on life support and the emotional funeral, Marcus Smart’s mother Camellia giggled at him, remembering a vow her son delivered at the age of nine.

“Do you remember the promise you made me?” Camellia asked Marcus.

He did. He had wanted something from his mother. He can’t remember exactly what anymore, but it was something a child typically yearns for. Camellia couldn’t give it to him. The family just didn’t have the money, but Marcus didn’t complain. He decided that when he grew up, he would make enough money so that his parents would never need to worry about it again. He would make it to the NBA and buy them a house and then they would be able to rest the way they deserved. 

Camellia didn’t actually believe her son at first. But in 2014, after the Celtics drafted Marcus with the sixth overall pick, he told his mother he would buy whatever house she wanted.

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“Are you sure?” she asked him.

He couldn’t have been more sure. She had never owned a house before, but she had ideas for her new place. She wanted a pool, a jacuzzi, a theater room and a nice backyard — the type where she could sit, eat her breakfast and spend time with her family. Before long, she found the perfect house.

After Camellia grew sick this year with myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of cancer, she and Marcus recalled the promise together. Tuesday, nine days after Camellia died at the age of 63,  Marcus shared with The Athletic what it meant to fulfill that oath before she passed away.

“I’m happy enough and blessed enough to be able for her to see me make it for the years that she had,” Marcus said. “When I said (I would let her) rest, I didn’t know it would be eternally. But she’s in a better place and she ain’t got no more worries. So I’m happy.”

The Celtics opened training camp Tuesday with a level of anticipation not seen since the Kevin Garnett era. Gordon Hayward returned to practice with a dunk off his left foot — yes, the injured one — and Kyrie Irving hit a game-winning 3-pointer in the first scrimmage open to the media. Optimism is overflowing.

Amid that environment, Smart is learning to live without his mother. In some ways, hopping right into training camp should be good for him. The guard has always considered basketball his escape. He delivered moving remarks on Monday about how the game serves as the eye of his storm, the center that remains calm while all is chaos outside. But during the season’s first two-a-day session the absence of his mom weighed on him.

“To be honest, basketball is my eye,” Smart said, “but the first day today was a little emotional for me just for the simple fact that every year I started training camp she was there.”

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At least outwardly, Smart seems to be handling the tragedy with remarkable grace. He has found comfort knowing Camellia doesn’t deal with pain anymore while leaning on his belief that his mother, a faithful Christian, has moved on to a better place. Before her funeral, Smart told an old high school coach, Kenny Boren, that he wanted to stop using the past tense when discussing Camellia.

“She’s laid a foundation,” Boren said, “so that she’s going to be with him all the way through.”

But as much strength as Smart has shown since he first learned of his mother’s illness in April, the pain of the loss is still brand new to him. And that pain could keep evolving. Family friend Phillip Forte has told the Celtics to keep in mind how much Smart could miss Camellia during the season.

“It was always special between Marcus and his mom,” Forte said.

Mother and son spoke on the phone every day. After games, Smart would call his mom and she would critique his performance. If he missed free throws that day, you could bet Smart would hear about it. But his mother was his biggest fan. Her absence could hit him harder when those regular conversations don’t arrive.

“I kind of reminded some of the Celtics to keep in mind when he goes to Cleveland, he’s seen his mom there more than once,” Forte said. “She’s been there in the playoffs and everything else. When he goes to Dallas, he’s going to look for his mom to be there and she’s not going to be there. She’s been to New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Houston — those are some places she’s been that she’s not going to be there anymore. And that’s always tough.”

Camellia was the force who steered Smart away from a dangerous childhood path and the inspiration he looked to whenever he needed a push. She held her family together when they went through harsh times, including the death of Smart’s half-brother Todd Westbrook to cancer in 2004 — and she did that while dealing with her own issues. Camellia survived a quadruple bypass surgery three years ago and went for kidney dialysis three times per week late in life.

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“She’s just been the rock of everything,” Boren said. “She’s been the foundation of everything they are.”

That’s why it shook Smart so deeply to learn of his mother’s illness. When Camellia first received her cancer diagnosis, she shielded the news from Smart for months. It wasn’t until April, as the Celtics neared the playoffs, that she asked him to fly to Texas so she could deliver the news.

Crushed, Smart immediately thought he should stay with his mom, but she wanted him to rejoin the team for its postseason run. After he dove on the floor in his first game back from a wrist injury, the two spoke on the phone just like normal.

Even after learning of his mother’s cancer, Smart didn’t know the disease would take her away so soon. He regrets some of the time he spent this summer worrying about his contract negotiations with the Celtics, which ultimately resulted in a four-year, $52-million deal.

Smart knows the big contract made his mother ecstatic. “Baby, you finally did it,” she told him. 

Still, Smart wishes he would have refocused more of his time.

“I spent a lot of time on that instead of with my mom,” he said. “And it hurt me inside a little bit just for the simple fact that I didn’t know her time would be this soon.”

Family friends note Smart is very much a “mama’s boy.” One trait he shared with his mother: a big heart. Smart was far from the only person who loved Camellia. Her funeral was lined with Smart’s AAU teammates, high school friends, college teammates and a lot of their families. A number of Celtics delegates, including owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca, surprised Smart by showing up to the services in Texas.

“Camellia just touched so many people,” Boren said. “You could be her son or you could be a 40-year old white guy who has no blood relation to her whatsoever, and she’s going to treat you like her son or daughter.

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“He’s simply a reflection of her. Marcus is absolutely Camellia Smart wrapped up in everything. That’s the best way I can say it. She’s a really, really tough, inspirational, loving lady. Unconditional love. And they share a very special bond.”

Shortly after Camellia passed away, Smart commemorated that bond with a new tattoo. Inside three dice on his right forearm now reads the date of his mother’s death: 9-16-18. Above Camellia’s name, which is spelled out close to Smart’s wrist, displays the message with which she and Smart ended all their conversations: “God loves you, I love you.” The dice are both a nod to Camellia’s affection for casinos — “she loved gambling, she loved the slot machines,” Smart said — and a symbol for something her son has come to believe.

“I look at dice like life,” he said. “Life is a roll of the dice, you never know when your number’s going to be called. So you have to be ready. And just to be humble, just to keep myself humble and things like that.

“Just like I took from my oldest brother when he passed, none of this is guaranteed. You can never take anything for granted because you never know. It might be your time.”

After the cancer progressed this summer,  Smart put his mother in an apartment across the street from the hospital where she received treatment. At one point, doctors inserted tubes in Camellia which kept her from speaking. One day, Smart announced his presence by telling his mother, “I’m here.”

She replied by shaking her head.

“And I’m like, what’s wrong?” Smart said. “Like, you don’t want me here? And she’s telling me no. And I know why. She didn’t want me to see her like that.”

Camellia must have known Smart wouldn’t leave. Over the last few weeks of her life, he hardly ever did, rotating with other family members to sleep by her bedside. Nobody wanted Camellia to be alone.

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Despite all the love heading her way, her health deteriorated. When Camellia dealt with internal bleeding in her stomach, Marcus said he and his family made the heart-wrenching decision to decline surgery. The family essentially chose to prioritize her comfort.

“She couldn’t feel anything in the final moments. It was like a dream. We just let her pass peacefully,” Smart said. “But it was devastating for us. We had to sit there and watch that. But at the same time I’m glad that I was able to be there for her last moments, and her to see me and things like that.”

Touched by death again, Smart is both appreciative his mother could pass away without pain and flattened that it happened. He is heartbroken he won’t get to spend more time with her and forever grateful he received as much time as he did. He will want to call her after games, but knows for the first season in his life Camellia won’t be there to break down all the good and the bad. 

“I like to call it a beautiful nightmare,” Smart said. “And that’s just kind of how I live: it’s a beautiful nightmare. It’s a nightmare because you can’t believe she’s gone and this has happened. But never forget, she’s gone but never forgotten. And it’s beautiful because she’s in a beautiful place.”

(Top photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)