“Alabama will remember Will as a brave young man whose courage inspired us all,” Gov. Kay Ivey said
An Alabama teen who inspired a community has died after being diagnosed with cancer.
Will Roberts, 15, of Tuscaloosa died on Wednesday, July 22, after being hospitalized for osteosarcoma, his mother, Brittney Battles Roberts, confirmed in a heartfelt Facebook post.
“Will is finally ringing his forever cancer free bell as he entered the gates of Heaven!!!” she wrote, adding that Will died on her birthday.
“What a beautiful gift that God gave me today on my birthday….a celebration that there is no more cancer and Will entered into the kingdom of Heaven!!!! What better gift could I have received than to know my baby boy is sitting with Jesus and is cancer free….” Brittney wrote later in her post, which has since garnered more than 53,000 comments.
There was an outpouring of tributes across Alabama for the teen, with Gov. Kay Ivey remembering the impact Will left.
“I am heartbroken to learn of the pᴀssing of young Will Roberts,” Ivey wrote on Facebook.
“Alabama will remember Will as a brave young man whose courage inspired us all. God has called him home, where he is healed and with our Savior. Join me in praying for the Roberts family during this unimaginable loss,” the governor said.
Osteosarcoma is a rare, aggressive type of bone cancer that produces immature bone cells. It primarily affects children, teens, and young adults whose bones may still be developing.
In April, Will went viral for logging into his mother’s Facebook account and posting an online plea asking for a cure for his stage 4 cancer, WBRC reported.
Soon after, they received responses from people willing to help ranging from community leaders to politicians and beyond. Even Dr. Mehmet Oz reached out, Will’s family told WBRC.
“They have absolutely been amazing help,” Will told the news station in April. “If I hadn’t gotten on there and made that video, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
“You know, Dr. Oz has kind of spearheaded and got us in touch with the people we need to get in touch with,” Will’s father, Jason Roberts, told WBRC. “Only God knows the plan. We are a very God-centered family, and the fact is we’ve been very honest with Will and his chances are very slim, but with God anything is possible.”
In her Facebook message Wednesday, Brittney reflected on her son’s tenacity through it all.
“No child should have had to endure what Will endured. Yet every single day, Will found a reason to smile, crack a joke, encourage someone else, or remind us all what real strength looked like,” she wrote.
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Eventually the cancer spread to his brain, and his family had to make the difficult decision “to stop the suffering.”
His family thanked the staff at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, and all who offered their support.
“Over the last year and a half, we have watched complete strangers become family. We have watched churches across the country pray for a child they had never met. We have watched nurses become some of our closest friends,” Brittney wrote. “We have watched people come back to God, strengthen their faith, and believe in the power of prayer because of Will. That wasn’t an accident. God has been writing a story through Will that was always so much bigger than us.”
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