Brooke Smith, a victim of a rare cancer who responded to her complication by making jokes and reading the Bible, died Friday in Roanoke. She was 22.  Smith was featured in a 2008 Roanoke Times article that described how her budding career as a hairstylist and hobby as a fearless women's roller derby skater were stopped by a cancer that affects about 100 people a year in the United States.

She was diagnosed that year with alveolar soft part sarcoma, a slow-moving malignancy physicians originally expected wouldn't take its final toll for 10 to 15 years. But her friends and relatives say she sought refuge in God -- even after treatments didn't stop tumor growth, and physicians discovered her condition was advanced.

"Deep faith means your body is racked with pain, and you still put your trust in God," said the Rev. Quigg Lawrence, pastor of Church of the Holy Spirit, where Smith was a member. "She didn't complain one time."Smith grew up in a devout Christian home in Roanoke with her father, Barry; her mother, Becky; and her siblings Ashley, 24, and Mitchell, 18. But after her father died of a sudden heart attack in 2004, she rebelled against the values of her home.

"From then on, God was my enemy, and I didn't trust what God wanted," she said in the 2008 article. After being home schooled and graduating, she enrolled at Virginia Western Community College to study nursing in 2005, and in 2007 switched to the St. Pierre hairstyling school, where she learned haircuts and coloring.

In 2006, she joined a women's roller derby team based at the Star City Skate Center in Northeast Roanoke. In a competition in which competitors relish bashing their opponents, Smith was a crowd pleaser, and her photo was printed in a promotional poster for her team, Star City Roller Girls. The ad asked: "Are you aggressive? Do you have medical insurance?"

"She would grab you by the shoulders, grab you by the face to get around you," said Hunter Flanagan, a friend and teammate.  By the time she was diagnosed in September 2008, and was recovering from the removal of back and breast tumors, she stopped skating. Smith turned to her faith and didn't complain about her condition -- even when the femur bone in her right thigh cracked after several radiation treatments for a tumor in her pelvic area.

"The real question I've got to ask is to God: What do you want me to do?" she said in the article.