Prince Harry and Meghan Markle received some heartbreaking news this week; a teenage girl they met during their royal tour of Oceania has died.
19-year-old Eva McGauley was diagnosed with metastatic nasopharygeal cancer (cancer of the neck) when she was just 15. After being initially told treatment had been successful and that her cancer was gone, doctors later realised they were wrong. The cancer had spread, and it was terminal.
But desperate to live her life to the full, this only spurred Eva on to create a charity relating to an issue that was close to her heart. Having previously been involved with Wellington Rape Crisis, Eva decided to create EvasWish, a charity to facilitate an online messaging service for people affected by sexual violence.
As a result of all the incredible work Eva has done for women, she was featured in a book called 200 Women. The book is full of stories about inspirational women who are changing the world, so Eva decided to gift it to Meghan Markle when she met the Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their visit to New Zealand.
On her Instagram page, Eva expressed just how delighted she was to have met Harry and Meghan on their overseas tour.
"I have had the most amazing morning! I am so honoured and thankful to have been invited to Government House to meet with Meghan and Harry this morning," she wrote, adding that the couple are "such kind down to earth people who were really interested in the work EvasWish does."
But tragically, just three weeks after Eva met the Duke and Duchess, her family shared the news that the teenager had passed away.
"We are heartbroken to tell you all that Eva left us yesterday morning," her family wrote on an Instagram post. "It was very fast and peaceful and she was surrounded by her loved ones. Thank you so much to all of you who have followed Eva's journey and supported her dreams."
Tributes have flooded in to the young woman's social media pages, indicating just how much of an inspiration she was to her followers. We're sure Meghan and Harry will be truly saddened to hear of her passing.
[H/T HELLO!]
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Cat is Cosmopolitan UK's features editor covering women's issues, health and current affairs. news, features and health. The route to her heart is a simple combination of pasta and cheese (somewhat ironic considering the whole health writing thing), and she finds it difficult to commit to TV series so currently has about 14 different ones on the go.
