Young lovebirds Emmy and Jake met when they were in grade school and ended up reuniting nearly a decade later, with a touching modern-day love story that could have easily been lifted from a movie script.
The enchanted couple seemed to have everything going for them, and were planning the rest of their life together just as any other young couple would, blissfuly unaware of what fate had in store But soon after, things took an unexpected tragic turn that completely changed everything.
Jake and childhood sweetheart Emmy met in grade school when they were just 11-years-old. The young boy and the youthful girl attended primary school together and formed a strong bond early on. From innocent schoolyard crushes to blossoming young love, the two’s budding romance grew and intensified over the years. And although they couldn’t know it at the time, their relationship would impact their futures in ways that they could never imagine. One day, before their big adventure to the tropics, Emmy was on one of her regular trips to visit Jake. On the last day of their blissful stretch of time together, she asked a simple request of her boyfriend: to give her a neck massage.
The request seemed simple enough and Jake obliged, happy to do something nice for the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, but as he wrapped his hands around her, he noticed something that made him freeze. Jake had found a lump in Emmy’s neck and immediately feared the worst. “We were just two people in love lying on a beach without a care in the world… who would have known what was to happen next…” he reminisced. Much to their devastation, the couple was informed that Emmy was one of the youngest people in the country with a rare type of thyroid cancer. The diagnosis confirmed that it had spread to her spine, lungs, liver and bones. Heartbreakingly, they were told that Emmy’s condition was incurable.
Taking on life hand-in-hand, Emmy and Jake decided they wouldn’t give in to the disease and together they defiantly charged ahead fully prepared to battle for her young life. Like everything in life, Emmy approached the feat with her signature optimism and a megawatt smile. Jake filled Emmy’s final days with love and laughter. They adopted a fur-baby named Molly, wrote a children’s book together and raised money cancer charities. But the cancer finally got the better of Emmy 9 months into their marriage. Jake talks about Emmy’s final moments in the beautiful tribute he wrote soon after her death: “She was surrounded by all her family and was as comfortable as she could be,” Jake wrote on their blog. “The evening sun was still shining, the French doors were open, the birds were singing their evening song and three dogs and a very minxy Milly moo (Emmys and my beautiful 2 and a half year old niece) played and danced around her in a perfect blissful ignorance. It was exactly how Emmy would have wanted it to be.”
