VIRGINIA BEACH — She found out on her 27th birthday, Feb. 16, 2004.
Kathy Roberts was vivacious, in love and had just started her legal career. So the news didn’t register. It also didn’t make sense to those who knew her well. Roberts had breast cancer.
The Portsmouth native was the last person to ever worry about herself; she always left that up to everyone else, while she worried about them – especially her parents.
Herbert D. “Butch” and Shirley Roberts remember Kathy as a giving person.
“The legacy we can give to our daughter was that she was compassionate,” said Herbert, a retired Navy petty officer .
“But she did it quietly,” his wife quickly added.
She was wearing a pink T-shirt with the image of their smiling daughter, who died May 13 at age 29.
There was something about Kathy. Like her personality, her life was unusual.
When her family got stationed in Japan in 1984, a 7-year-old Kathy quickly found the sister she never had. She and Yuko Hiran , also 7, were so inseparable, that when the Robertses returned to the United States, Yuko’s parents asked if their daughter could spend a year with them. She has been a member of the family since.
Kathy’s only brother recalled when she got her first and only speeding ticket.
“She ran through the house yelling, 'I got my first speeding ticket!’” Jimmy, 32, said.
Kathy also loved motorsports and her favorite NASCAR driver was Michael Waltrip. “Kathy and Michael had the same personality,” Jimmy said.
Kathy, a paralegal, had plans to pursue her law degree at Regent University.
“She wasn’t satisfied with her bachelor’s degree,” her father said.
After graduating from Christopher Newport University in 2003, Kathy landed her first job with Barry Spear , a Newport News lawyer.
Kathy quickly took over on her first day, Spear said. She was his office manager, secretary, paralegal and IT guru.
Her willingness to help others was what Kathy’s boyfriend, Christopher Benko , admired about her.
Benko, 34, said they had plans to marry. For one week in late April, the couple enjoyed a Caribbean cruise.
“It was a getaway that we planned to celebrate her beating cancer,” he said.
