“We know how precious and how short life can be,” says Zechariah Harris, who proposed to Kyra Edwards two days before Valentine’s Day
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- Kyra Edwards grew up with fiancé Zechariah Harris, but their romance didn’t begin until she went back to her hometown decades later following a difficult stretch, which included being diagnosed with cancer and losing her husband in a car crash
- When they met up again in December, Edwards tells PEOPLE her kids “were laughing at me” because she was so excited
- This February, as she learned that there was no evidence of the disease in her body, Edwards got something else to celebrate: an engagement
Kyra Edwards first developed a crush on Zechariah Harris when she was 14, but the stars didn’t align for them until decades later, when she was visiting their hometown in Indiana following a stretch of devastating health issues and heartbreaking loss.
Last December, they reconnected and fell in love — and just two days before Valentine’s Day this year, Edwards wound up having two very big things to celebrate. That day, the mother of three learned no cancer was detected in her body — and Harris proposed.
“It’s like a Hallmark movie,” says Edwards, a 47-year-old real estate broker who lives in Winder, Ga. “I’m so overwhelmingly happy to feel this type of love and with someone who’s been my friend for over 30 years. He’s truly my best friend.”
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Edwards was diagnosed with stage three colorectal cancer in October 2023 and immediately began treatment.
By January, she was told she was having a very rare adverse reaction to the treatment causing cardiotoxicity. “I was told that I pretty much had no other options,” she says. “I should just go ahead and get my affairs in order.”
She sought out a second opinion at City of Hope Cancer Center Atlanta, where doctors were able to treat her with a different form of the medication she needed to survive, which fortunately, her body was able to tolerate.
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Tragically, just after she completed her radiation and chemotherapy treatments, in August 2024, her husband Brad, whom she’d been married to for 19 years, was killed in a car accident. Their then-10-year-old son Blaine, was in the vehicle with him. Despite the car flipping eight times, he survived and was able to extricate himself and run to the road for help.
Months later, on Nov. 1, Edwards had surgery to remove her cancer, and her late husband’s mother moved in to help take care of her, Blaine and her 16-year-old daughter Parker Ann. (Kyra also helped raise her late husband’s now-21-year-old daughter Ally, from his previous marriage.)
In another heartbreaking turn, shortly after celebrating Blaine’s 11th birthday on Dec. 15 with the family, Brad’s mom unexpectedly died in her sleep.