Not All Heroes Wear Capes<\/a> program, which saw them working with young kids living with illnesses like Andrade’s own.\n<\/p>\n “We would deliver Easter baskets to children in the cancer ward at the Valley Children’s Hospital here in town,” Wilson tells PEOPLE nearly two weeks after his wife’s death. “Then we would take these kids out to a sports game later in the year and have their families join them.”\n<\/p>\n
The couple started dating about a year after Andrade received her diagnosis. However, by the time Wilson came into the beauty queen’s life, her prognosis had evolved in a more positive direction.\n<\/p>\n
“The first set of treatments that they were able to give her \u2014\u00a0which was a surgery and a follow-up chemotherapy \u2014\u00a0were extremely effective,” he explains. That period of remission lasted about two years. Then, in 2020, Andrade was re-diagnosed as stage 4.\n<\/p>\n
In the years that followed, Wilson supported his wife through a health journey filled with challenges that seemed impossible to hurdle, and yet for so many years, Andrade triumphed. When she took another turn for the worse around Christmas this past December, her loved ones prayed she’d find a way to prevail once again.\n<\/p>\n
“She had faced so many things that she wasn’t expected to bounce back from, from the first time I had dealt with her cancer situation, which was in 2020, when she was re-diagnosed. She had an infection in her blood. She had two tumors that were growing very rapidly,” Wilson recalls to PEOPLE. “The doctors told her and us that it was unlikely she was going to make it out of the hospital that week. And miraculously, she recovered. She was able to continue treatment.”\n<\/p>\n
Andrea Andrade in the hospital.<\/p>\n
Andrea Andrade\/Instagram<\/p>\n
In 2021, Andrade learned her tumors “had grown wildly out of control,” Wilson notes, putting her in the ICU. She needed a crucial operation, and her doctors worried the procedure wouldn’t be possible given her weakened state.\n<\/p>\n
“Then all of a sudden she turned a corner and was able to have this life-saving surgery,” the grieving husband explains. “So many different times she had faced really these life or death moments, and her quest was to always fight, never stop fighting, not until the very end.”\n<\/p>\n
Her family maintained hope even when she was hospitalized again in December. “This was another one of those situations that she was going to make a miraculous recovery,” Wilson reflects. “It was very challenging, very, very hard to see the person that you love not bouncing back.”\n<\/p>\n
Acceptance came in the final days of her life, when Andrade’s medical team said there wasn’t much more they could do in a hospital setting. The most beneficial course of action was no longer treatment. Instead, the doctors suggested she spend her precious remaining time at home with the people closest to her.\n<\/p>\n
Andrea Andrade in her Miss West Coast sash.<\/p>\n
Andrea Andrade\/Instagram<\/p>\n
“From the moment she was in the hospital around Christmas until the day she passed, I didn’t leave her side. I sat next to her every moment I could. I took an air mattress to the hospital. So we were together every moment,” says Wilson.\n<\/p>\n
At the end, he was joined by Andrade’s mother, father and brother. “Trying to comfort her and care for her and show her as much love and support until the very end is what we tried to do.”\n<\/p>\n
On the other side of the heartbreaking loss, Wilson is working with his and Andrade’s loved ones to keep her legacy alive in a number of ways. In addition to continuing Not All Heroes Wear Capes, they are creating the Andrea Andrade Foundation, which will continue her work of helping those affected by cancer, especially children.\n<\/p>\n
Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\n<\/p>\n The family will also be supporting wig donation programs, as Wilson says his wife personally appreciated the ability to sport various looks after losing her hair in treatment.\n<\/p>\n
“She’s a beautiful woman, and she bought 50 different wigs that she would wear out and dress up in different styles,” he remembers of the late pageant queen. “She made the absolute most of that.”<\/p>\n