Today viewers have long admired Craig Melvin’s humility and love for his family. The newscaster announced the death of his older brother, Lawrence Meadows, in December 2020.
Who Was Craig Melvin’s Brother Lawrence?
Lawrence co-owned a funeral home in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He earned a masters in divinity and a doctorate in ministry from Gardner-Webb University before beginning his pastoral journey. He was married to his wife, Angela Cobbs Meadows, for 16 years. They became parents to two children, Addie M. Meadows and Lawson R. Meadows.
What Happened to Craig Melvin’s Brother Lawrence?
In February 2017, Craig publicly revealed that Lawrence was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.
“You never want to hear of anyone getting a cancer diagnosis … it nearly knocked me off my feet,” the broadcaster reflected.
Doctors discovered the cancer had spread after removing a baseball-sized tumor from Lawrence’s abdomen in 2016. He began receiving chemotherapy treatment at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
Lawrence died in December 2020 at age 43, four years after he was first diagnosed.
“We lost our older brother this week. 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,” Craig wrote on Instagram at the time. “Colon cancer robbed him and us of so much. 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.”
Years later, the TV personality partnered with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance to raise money for colon cancer research and family support.
“The reality is, had Lawrence gotten checked earlier, he might still be with us,” Craig told People. “But we didn’t know about our family history and there were signs that he ignored.”
“And I’m not saying anything that he wouldn’t have said when he was alive,” he added. “There were abdominal pains, there was blood in the stool, there was weight loss that he just dismissed as other things.”
In March 2021, Craig accompanied his younger brother, Ryan Melvin, to the doctor’s office as he underwent his first colonoscopy.
“We need to do better about getting ourselves screened so we can live longer and have healthier, more prosperous lives,” Ryan told Today during a segment after the procedure.