I have written countless of articles, but nothing saddens me more than this one.

My prayers and condolences go out to the family of, Eva Ekvall. In the hopes that similar to me, the pain, and anguish of losing one so young, will one day be replaced by thoughts of happiness, for the precious moments that were spent together.

Ekvall, the former Miss Venezuela died on December 17, losing a two-year battle with breast cancer.

Her death, in some ways parallels the story of the young woman I lost at the tender age of 22, after a two-year battle with leukemia.

Similar to Ekvall, she was an aspiring model, who was robbed of her opportunity to grace the world with her beauty. To this day, although her doctor assured me, the two were not connected; I still harbor doubt if her desire to give me a child did not in some way trigger her cancer.

What brought these suppressed memories to the forefront were the pictures of Ekvall with no hair, and the fact that she discovered the lump in her breast during pregnancy.

I can recall seeing my fiancée fighting back the tears as she looked at herself in the mirror. The ravages of chemotherapy can be most unflattering, and she swore and put forth her most valiant effort, as she tried to hide her tears from me, that she would be victorious against leukemia.

Gone was the long flowing hair, the voluptuous physique, the bewitching eyes, and the melodious voice of innocence, and in spite of it all, it was then that the true essence of her beauty was revealed.

“As I reminisce,

The way I often do,

Trying to find the words,

To capture the essence of you,

The way you smile at me,

The way you make me feel,

I still can’t believe,

That this love is real.

You’re beautiful,

In every way,

You’re beautiful,

What more can I say . . .?”

Unlike Ekvall, who had the opportunity to be an advocate and a crusader for breast cancer awareness around the world, for my fiancée, there was only me.

It would take me nearly a decade to find a way to keep my promise of making her death stand for something.

My thoughts are shrouded in what others characterized as an emotional, and compelling novel entitled . . .

“I Apologize”

Graphic pictures from Ekvall’s book, Fuera de Foco (Out of Focus), which chronicled her fight against breast cancer, took me back into my fiancée’s hospital room.

The machinery is the same, the pic line similar, and the effects from the chemotherapy the same, but the one thing that is different, there are no pictures of my fiancée’s battle for the world to see.

Her pictures though, are alive within me . . . the ebullient smile, the vivacious personality, her youthful playfulness, and the last time I saw her, are a vivid part of my memory.

“Pushing the doctor aside, I went into her room. Nothing was wrong, I told myself. I’ll wake her. Take her home. She wouldn’t have given up on us. I don’t care what they said. She would never have left me.

Never!

If one of us had to go, it was supposed to be me. Not you, never one as young as you.

Wake up. Please wake up. Do it for me. Open your eyes. Please open your eyes. Falling on top of her, I cried until no more tears came.

I don’t know how long I stayed. A nurse finally came in. Putting her arms around me, she led me out of the room.”

Bradley Booth/Freelance Commercial Writer/Author