Pageant queen’s husband hoped for a ‘miraculous’ recovery before his death (Exclusive)

On January 16, California beauty queen Andrea Andrade passed away at the age of 35, nine years after doctors diagnosed her with colon cancer.

Her husband of eight years, Chris Wilson, paid tribute to her on Instagram. “My eternal love. I know this is not goodbye. See you on the other side, baby. Hold me in your heavenly arms, I love you, I love you,” he captioned a merry-go-round photo of the two of them posted on Jan. 20.

Andrade was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2017. At the time, doctors gave her only six months to two years to live, but it turned out that the prognosis was only a fraction of the time she needed to live to achieve her dreams.

She won five pageants: Miss West Coast, Miss Nuestra Beleza USA, Miss Fresno County, Miss Regional West, and Miss California Congeniality. Andrade traveled widely, danced in concerts, and dedicated his life to charity work. She and Wilson, 39, founded the Not All Heroes Wear a Cape program, which works with young children living with illnesses like Andrade.

“We were going to deliver Easter baskets to the kids in the cancer ward at Valley Children’s Hospital here in town,” Wilson told PEOPLE about two weeks after his wife’s death. “Then, at the end of the year, I plan on taking my kids to sports games and getting my family involved.”

The couple began dating about a year after Andrade was diagnosed. However, by the time Wilson appeared in the beauty queen’s life, her prognosis had developed in a more positive direction.

“The first treatment they were able to give her, surgery followed by chemotherapy, was very effective,” he explains. That period of remission lasted about two years. Then, in 2020, Andrade was rediagnosed as stage 4.

Over the next few years, Wilson supported his wife on a health journey filled with challenges that seemed impossible to overcome, yet through the years, Andrade emerged victorious. When she took a turn for the worse around Christmas in December of this year, her loved ones prayed that she would find a way to win again.

“She was going through so much from the time I first dealt with her cancer situation that she never expected to recover from. That was when she was rediagnosed in 2020. She had an infection in her blood. She had two tumors that were growing very quickly,” Wilson recalled to PEOPLE. “The doctors told her and us that it was unlikely that she would be able to leave the hospital that week. And miraculously she recovered. She was able to continue treatment.”

In 2021, Andrade learned that her tumor had “grown so large that it was out of control” and she was admitted to the ICU, Wilson said. She needed serious surgery, but doctors feared it would be impossible given her weakened condition.

“Then, all of a sudden, she turned a corner and was able to undergo life-saving surgery,” the grieving husband explains. “She really faced many life-or-death moments, but her quest was always to fight and never stop fighting until the end.”

When she was hospitalized again in December, her family remained hopeful. “This was another situation where she would miraculously recover,” Wilson recalled. “It was very, very difficult to see someone you love not recover.”

It was accepted on the last day of Andrade’s life when his medical team said there was not much more that could be done in the hospital. The most beneficial course of action was no more treatment. Instead, doctors suggested she spend the rest of her precious time at home with loved ones.

“From the moment she went into the hospital around Christmas until the day she died, I never left her side. I sat next to her whenever I could. I brought an air mattress with me to the hospital, so we were together through thick and thin,” Wilson said.

Andrade’s mother, father, and brother joined in at the end. “What we tried to do was comfort her, care for her and show her the utmost love and support until the end.”

Despite the heartbreaking loss, Wilson is working with Andrade and Andrade’s loved ones to keep her legacy alive in a variety of ways. In addition to continuing their “Not All Heroes Wear Capes” work, they are establishing the Andrea Andrade Foundation, which will continue her work supporting people, especially children, who suffer from cancer.

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The family also plans to support a wig donation program, as Wilson’s wife said she personally valued his ability to sport a variety of looks after losing his hair to treatment.

“She was a beautiful woman who would buy 50 different wigs and dress up in different styles with them,” he recalls of the late pageant queen. “She made the most of it.”