Diane Marquis Monaghan and Marie Roberge have a lot in common. They each have two grown children and love to play golf. They both raise lots of money for causes they believe in and have reached significant five-year milestones. Both are survivors of breast cancer.

Monaghan celebrated her “cancer free day” Friday, Oct. 3. She was diagnosed with breast cancer on Sept. 25, 2003. “It was not bad news,” Monaghan said. “It was shocking news.” Eight days later, Monaghan had surgery and has celebrated that day ever since.

“(Cancer) allowed me to go to a whole other place,” Monaghan said. “I can relate to cancer patients in a way that I never could. It was a gift in many ways. There are other things that could be a lot worse,” she explained.

Roberge retired Aug. 1 after raising $1 million for the American Cancer Society. “That’s how we crossed paths,” said Roberge of her friendship with Monaghan, vice president of the Sisters of Charity Foundation. The two survivors met during a ribbon cutting for the American Cancer Society Resource Center in Lewiston in 2006. A brainchild of Monaghan, the facility came to be when she was going through chemotherapy and realized she had many questions that were not getting answered. “Where do I go to buy a wig,” Monaghan explained. “There was a need to fill.”

The wig lasted one day, but her dream to help others with cancer will last a lifetime. The resource center was established three years later and so was a good friendship. Monaghan and Roberge have now found their match on the golf course.

“This is how I spend my days, hanging out at the golf course,” said Roberge, cancer free for seven years. Roberge was diagnosed in February 2001 and has undergone six operations, six months of chemotherapy and six months of radiation. “I played golf all during my treatment, Roberge said. “It made me think about cancer less and golf more.”

Roberge’s doctor put her on an anti-nausea steroid. “I thought it was a steroid that would make me hit the golf ball farther,” Roberge laughed.

The chance of breast cancer reoccurring is reduced after five years, Roberge said. Monaghan’s five year celebration ideally would have been celebrated with her husband John on a picnic below Morse Mountain. But the tide schedule would not allow that to happen.

Roberge celebrated her five-year anniversary by going out to dinner with family in Portland. They tried two different restaurants, but those were closed. They ended up at Five Fifty-Five, a restaurant on Congress Street. “It was meant to be,” Roberge said.