Eva Dien Brine Markvoort story lives on.!

This story appeared in the Vancouver Sun this morning unbeknown to me. It honours the relationship between Justin and Eva, a beautiful story.Eva's story lives on through 65 Red Roses documentaryShe lost her battle with cystic fibrosis. Now friends and family want to keep her dream of organ donation aliveBy Miro Cernetig, Vancouver SunApril 29, 2010It's hard to say who has the more courage in this love story, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet where it's the cruelty of genetics, not class snobbery, that deals the fatal blow.But let's start with Eva Markvoort. She's the star of 65 Red Roses, a 2009 documentary made in Vancouver that's becoming an international sensation.It's a gritty but uplifting film that follows Eva's quest for a double-lung transplant, necessitated by the ravages of the cystic fibrosis that leaves her gasping for breath. The film's 65 Red Roses title is how a child once pronounced the disease, a mashing of the words that delighted Eva and she appropriated.In the film, Eva eventually gets her lung transplant. Her life's dream of being an actress seems within reach. She is radiant. She's literally been given the gift of life.That touching story has been a hit at film festivals, where 65 Red Roses has won top honours at the Vancouver Film Festival, Hot Docs and the Arizona International Film festival. It's now nominated for a best documentary award at the Banff International Film Festival.But a film is only a snapshot of a person. Life continues after the credits. Eva's battle with cystic fibrosis wasn't over, alas. Within two years her body began to reject those lungs. She was put on the list for another organ transplant, getting thinner and thinner, yet staying impossibly optimistic, as once again it became harder and harder to breathe.On the morning of March 25, in her hospital, she wrote this poem for her blog, on the www.65redroses.comwebsite, where she chronicles her life with cystic fibrosis:i'm at that point now i'm done with the poetics asking for helpmy sister is helping me write actually helping me writethe medications have been piling upthey are taking their tolli am supersaturated with medicationsi've been medically missingin action for two daysthe docs started taking me off some of them to see how i would manage and i am not managing not managing at alli'm drowning in the medicationsi can't breathe every hour once an hour i can't breathesomething has to changeTwo days later, her parents posted this:Our beautiful girl died thismorning at 9:30. She is at peace.... Eva was 25.Living through this with her friends and family was a young man named Justin Cousineau. He was the film's editor.Inside the editing suite at Force Four Entertainment, the Vancouver production house that made the film, he spent months screening hours and hours of footage of Eva, stitching the film together. The 25-year-old had never met Eva. That wouldn't happen for six months, when she came into Force Four's office. But as he sat in that dark room -- being a film editor is a sort of self-imposed solitary confinement -- Cousineau slowly realized he was falling in love with the woman on the screen."We needed to have the audience fall in love with Eva," he says. "I guess in the process I did, too."When he eventually met her, they initially started off as friends. "She was a little weirded out I knew everything about her."Eventually she fell for him, too."We were in love," says Cousineau. "Eva had two years of a new life."It was Eva's hope her story would encourage people of all ages to donate their organs when they die. Only about 15 per cent of people now do. Now Cousineau, along with Eva's friends and family, are on a quest to keep her dream alive."Now," he said, "it's our job to carry on Eva's legacy."This Friday in New Westminster's 2,000-seat Massey Theatre, where Eva performed in plays and concerts, her friends are gathering for a memorial. They're calling it The Celebration of Love. It will be streamed out live at 4 p.m. Pacific Time april 30 on the 65 Red Roses website for the hundreds of thousands of people in Canada and around the world who have been following Eva's blog for years.It seems they fell in love with Eva Markvoort, too.mcernetig@vancouversun.com

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