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Beauty and the beast

It is not often that a beautiful woman will allow herself to be seen in the public eye without looking her best. But when the clock is ticking away and your time on this earth is very limited, the wrinkles and the bags under the eye often cease to matter.

Former Venezuelan beauty queen Eva Ekvall, who passed away from breast cancer, painfully young at 28, brought this into sharp focus before her death in Houston last week. Images of the former beauty queen, her head bare from the ravages of chemotherapy, sent thousands of admirers in her country into tears. Ekvall, who was crowned Miss Venezuela in 2000 and was also a Miss Universe finalist, had a promising career as a model, actress and television presenter when the disease struck her, just weeks after she gave birth to her first child.

The brave mother wrote about her struggle with the disease in her book, “Fuera de Foco” (Out of Focus) — that also carried pictures of her as the disease took its toll on her body. Also featured in the book are her emails to family and friends, where she talks about her fears about the future and her sadness about leaving a small infant behind.

Before her death, Ekvall became a spokesperson for the war against breast cancer. Her own struggle was disappointing — despite chemotherapy and a brief period of remission, the disease took her life, to the anguish of thousands of followers .

“I hate to see photos in which I come out ugly,” Ekvall said before her death. “But you know what? Nobody ever said cancer is pretty or that I should look like Miss Venezuela when I have cancer.”

Despite knowing that her followers would be shocked seeing images of her cancer-ravaged body, she insisted on going public with her pictures, minus make up. “It’s absurd that there should be a taboo about breast cancer in a country of breast implants, where women have few reservations about showing off their surgically-enhanced breasts,” she said.

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