DESTIN — People visit the area for many reasons: weddings, family vacations or just to get a tan.
But when Melinda Roberts makes her annual trip with her childhood friends, it’s all about connecting with those who know and love her best.
“After our 30-year high school reunion in 2009, I just thought, life is too short to just see each other at reunions,” said Roberts, who lives in Birmingham, Ala.
So she began organizing yearly trips to her parents’ condo at Jetty East in Destin. Now in its fourth year, the group has grown to 10 women.
Roberts and her friends met as teens at St. Agnes Academy, an all-girls school in Memphis, Tenn.
“There were only 69 girls in the graduating class,” Roberts said. “St. Agnes instilled in us togetherness. We have a strong alumni association.”
Although life has scattered some of the women across the country, they’ve always kept a close bond.
“Thank God for technology; we’re all on Facebook,” said Maria Stringfellow of Memphis, who helps house the friends at her parents’ condo at Chateau La Mer II.
The women have been through a lot over the years.
“We have been through the deaths of some of our parents, a life-threatening pregnancy, a near-death accident, a stroke, a heart attack and painful personal issues,” Roberts said.
But on the beach one evening last week, they had something more to celebrate. One of their own was cancer free.
“To say that this year’s beach trip will be really special is an understatement,” Roberts said.
Melinda Winchester of Germantown, Tenn., was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2012. After almost a year of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, her hair is growing back, and with the help of her friends she’s beginning to feel more like herself again.
After losing her mother to lung cancer and fighting leukemia twice with her husband who is now in remission, the battle with cancer is all too familiar to Winchester. She said her friends have been there to hold her hand through all of it.
“I’ve always known that God loves me, but when things like this happen you want to scream out and ask why,” she said. “I never needed God more in my life.”
Pointing to her friends, as her eyes welled with tears, Winchester said, “These are the hands of Jesus. I didn’t go to one round of chemotherapy by myself. I’ve been spoiled rotten in the past eight months.”
It was the annual Destin trip that gave her the strength to fight.
“I thought, ‘If I could just get to the beach,’ ” she said. “I looked so forward to putting my feet in the sand. I thought about our trip and what my friends mean to me. It was therapeutic. There is a God and he put us all together.”
According to the American Cancer Society, one in eight women in the United States will develop breast cancer.
“I’m the first of our group, but more than likely I won’t be the last,” Winchester said. “And when that time comes I’ll be there.”
On the beach at Jetty East, Winchester had donned pink cowboy boots to join her friends to commemorate the past eight months. Using a child’s toy shovel, she wrote the word “cancer” in the sand. The friends clapped and cheered when the water washed it away.
They ate that night at Boshamps Seafood & Oyster House. Little did they know a high school friend had called ahead. When they sat down they were presented with specially-made Melinda’s Miracle Martinis. The concoction was purple, the same color as the cancer survivor ribbon.
Winchester has been so overwhelmed by the support and love of her friends that she’s been thinking about writing a book. The working title?
“We’ve got this,” she said.
Contact Walton Sun Staff Writer Jennie McKeon at 850-654-8445 or jmckeon@waltonsunonline.com.