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Craig Melvin’s brother, Lawrence Meadows, has died after a years-long battle with stage 4 colon cancer. He was 43.
TheTodayco-anchor, 41, shared the heartbreaking news on Instagram Saturday.
“We lost our older brother this week,” Melvinwrote. “Lawrence Meadows was a husband (to Angela, his childhood sweetheart), father (to Addie, 11 and Lawson, 7) Baptist minister, entrepreneur, and one of the best human beings you would’ve ever known.”
“Colon cancer robbed him and us of so much,” he continued. “He was diagnosed at 39. He died Wednesday at 43. He spent a fair amount of time over the past few years raising awareness about the disease. We’ll be keeping up that fight. We love you, bro.”
Melvinfirst shared newsof his brother’s cancer diagnosis on theTodayshow in February 2017, explaining that doctors removed a baseball-sized tumor from Meadows' abdomen in October 2016 and discovered that the cancer had already spread.
“You never want to hear of anyone getting a cancer diagnosis… it nearly knocked me off my feet,” Melvin said at the time.
In 2018, Melvin called his brother a “fighter” whilegiving an updateon his health. He also said that Meadows had undergone 28 chemotherapy treatments in Houston at that point.
Melvinopened up to PEOPLEin April about Meadows' cancer battle, calling it “a punch in the gut” when they learned about his diagnosis in 2017.
“Here’s a guy who didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, lived a clean life, played football in college,” Melvin said about his brother. “He was 39 at the time.”
“We didn’t know about a family history of it,” he added. “And then all of a sudden you start asking questions and you realize, oh, wait a minute. Our grandma had colon cancer. We didn’t know she had colon cancer. No one ever talked about it.”
According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer incidence rates in African-Americans are about 20 percent higher than those in non-Hispanic whites and 50 percent higher than those in Asians.
source: people.com
