�Ӱ��԰�

Melissa Christie Roberts has faced more battles in the past five years than many endure in a lifetime and yet, she greets each one with remarkable peace.

"I'm not a worrier, I'm a warrior," the 65-year-old retired teacher told THE WEEKEND STAR, reflecting on her ongoing fight with lung cancer, a diagnosis she received last year after already surviving stage 2 breast cancer.

Her battle with cancer began in 2020, when a routine check-up revealed a suspicious lump. She remembers her doctor asking when she last did a mammogram. It had been three years.

"They said they saw a suspicious lump, and I said okay," Christie Roberts recalled.

The lump turned out to be cancerous, and doctors recommended a mastectomy. Without panic or fear, she agreed.

"Funny enough, I didn't feel frightened. I wasn't out of my mind or anything like that, I was seemingly calm."

That calm carried her through a mastectomy in 2022, and by September 2023, Christie Roberts was declared cancer-free. It was a moment of triumph and relief after countless doctor visits, a surgery, treatments and sleepless nights.

But her relief was short-lived.

In February 2024, she was shocked to learn that she had developed lung cancer.

Christie Roberts admits that the new discovery rattled her. At first, she felt she was "waiting to die," falling into a kind of silent shock.

"It wasn't a fear," she said. "It was, okay, this is my lungs now." She turned to Google, reading about what could happen, and for a moment, it felt like the end.

Christie Roberts says her fear wasn't for herself but for her daughter. When she first broke the news of her breast cancer diagnosis, it was her daughter's heartbreak that brought her to tears.

"She started crying, and somehow that's when I cried when I heard her say, 'Mommy, I don't want you to die.' That broke me," Christie Roberts recalled.

Even in that painful moment, Christie Roberts offered comfort, leaning on a lifetime of faith and perspective. She reminded her daughter that death is a part of life, and that as long as they had time together, they should treasure it.

"If anything, my illness drew me closer to God," she shared. "It brought some comfort to me."

Now retired, Christie Roberts is feeling the toll of illness and age. Though no longer in the classroom, she admits she still longs to work - even as she battles fatigue and nerve pain.

She has also begun shifting away from pharmaceuticals, embracing natural remedies not out of blind hope, but mindful reflection.

"I know persons use natural remedies and they still die. I know persons use pharmaceuticals and they still die. Whatever you choose, it's up to you," she said.

Christie Roberts is buoyed by what she calls her "village": her family, church community, and close friends who have rallied around her. Through it all, she has never once questioned why cancer came knocking twice.

"Saying that is like saying, why not somebody else? I don't want that thought at all."