As Craig Melvin and his family mourn the loss of his older brother, he has taken some solace in knowing that Lawrence Meadows is now at peace after years of being treated for colon cancer.
Craig's brother died at 43 on Dec. 9, four years after he was first diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at 39 years old. Craig shared an update on TODAY Wednesday from his home after returning from his native South Carolina, where he was with his family.
"I'm doing better. ... Our family's relieved," Craig said. "He was suffering at the end, and you have someone that you love and that you cherish, you don't want them to suffer anymore. So his suffering is over, and our family, we're in a pretty good spot."
Craig, 41, first shared the heartbreaking news on Instagram this past weekend.
"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," he wrote in the caption. "Colon cancer robbed him and us of so much."
Craig was grateful on Wednesday for the outpouring of support following Meadows' death.
"On behalf of our families, I wanted to thank the friends, the strangers who sent cards and texts, prayers especially, and you guys, our little TV family," he said. "You guys really held us up over the last few weeks, and it was a kindness and a generosity that we will never forget. So I wanted to, from the bottom of my heart on behalf of my family, to thank you for that."
He first shared the news about his brother's diagnosis in 2017 on TODAY, noting that doctors removed a baseball-sized tumor from his abdomen in October 2016 and discovered that the cancer had already spread.
Colorectal cancer is the third-most-common type of cancer in the country, excluding skin cancers, and the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men and women, according to the American Cancer Society.
Craig gave an update on Meadows in 2018, calling him "a fighter" and shared that his brother had undergone 28 chemotherapy treatments in Houston, a thousand miles away from his home in South Carolina.
In memory of his brother, Craig and his family have requested that any donations be made to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance.