Jill Smokler, mom of three and creator of the raw and honest website “Scary Mommy,” died on June 22 at age 48, two years after her diagnosis with an aggressive form of brain cancer.
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“Jill spent her life telling the truth about motherhood — that it could be wonderful and impossible in the very same breath — and in doing so, she gave millions of women permission to stop pretending and feel a little less alone,” wrote her family in a statement shared with TODAY.com by her brother Matt Epstein.
“She was funny, fearless, generous, and entirely herself,” the statement continued. “More than anything she built, Jill was proudest of her three children, Lily, Ben, and Evan. We are heartbroken to lose her, and endlessly proud of the mark she left on the world.”
The obituary shared by the family describes Smokler’s contribution to the parenting conversation by saying she “wrote about the parts of motherhood that weren’t supposed to be said aloud: the mess, the boredom, the guilt, the flashes of rage, and the love so big it somehow made it all worthwhile. Scary Mommy wasn’t just a website. It was permission: to laugh, to admit it was hard, to tell the truth, and to be a great mother without pretending to enjoy every single second of it.”
Smokler started the “Scary Mommy” blog when she was home with three kids under 4. Now Evan, Ben and Lily are in their late teens and early 20s.
The kids’ father, Jeff Smokler, was married to Jill for 17 years. They divorced in 2017 because Jeff realized that he was gay. Even so, Smokler told TODAY.com in 2024 that her cancer diagnosis brought them together in a “weird way.”
She said, “Jeff is very cognizant of what I will be missing out on,” Smokler tells TODAY.com. “He’s helping me make the most of my time with the kids.”
In a tribute to his late ex-wife on Threads on June 22, Jeff Smokler wrote, “No words will ever convey 30 years of a life shared. Since I was 18 years old, Jill was my touchstone. Every part of who I am today was in part shaped by who she was — and who we were together. Our relationship was complicated, especially in the last several years, but it was also beautiful.”
In her first interview since receiving her glioblastoma diagnosis, Smokler told TODAY.com that she was feeling “not great. I keep alternating between feeling so profoundly sad and so pissed off.”
As always, Smokler didn’t hold back.
According to Cleveland Clinic, the fast-spreading brain cancer has no cure and life expectancy is 12 to 18 months. Roughly 7% of glioblastoma patients live beyond five years.
When Smokler shared her diagnosis on social media on May 3, 2024, she wrote: “Glioblastoma was not on my 2024 bingo card, alas here we are. Life changes fast, friends.”
“It’s been described to me as an octopus with tentacles,” Smokler told TODAY.com about her stage 4 cancer. “It’s not a one-time thing. It keeps coming back.”
“All I want to do is spend time with my kids, ideally on a beach because that’s my happy place,” Smokler shared at the time. “It’s so ridiculously bittersweet — I am trying to focus on the sweet part.”