There are friendships that are born in the preamble to death and, no matter how brief, last a lifetime. This is how the story of Shanik Aspe and Edith González can be summarized when they agreed on a project in which The host protected the actress from media exposure on the eve of her death.
They were both partners on the program This is my style together with designer David Salomón. They made up the shortlist of guests to serve as fashion judges for the contest that Andrea Pedrero won. The last broadcast was on May 11, 2019.
By that time Shanik and Edith had already generated a special complicity that began three months ago when the forum recordings began. Aspe was fearful of the actress, since she arrived prejudiced towards González’s figure and her personality. He had been told that she was a woman with a harsh character.
“I heard things like ‘Edith is difficult’, ‘she’s complicated’. People told me ‘damn!’. I was very nervous about working with Edith. My surprise was that she was a gift for me and for everyone, (because) she always “He had the best attitude. We finished recording and he was like, ‘Hey, I’m waiting for you down here so we can all eat and share the table.’ He was in charge of getting us all together,” he recalled in an interview with Anette Cuburu on her program Anetteando.
Aspe met a different Edith González than the one he had been told about. He met a happy, kind, humble and full of life woman who had apparently overcome ovarian cancer. At no time did the actress show signs of having relapsed, she did not want anyone to know that the cancer cells had reappeared in her body.
“We sang, we danced. It was really impressive, because I didn’t know that she was really sick. I thought that she was sick, but I never thought that she was still fighting something. Her attitude was not that of a sick person,” he recalled.
During the month of April the symptoms manifested in Edith’s body. In the eyes of his colleagues, technicians and crew of the program he hid the illness. He avoided attracting attention, he did not want to be the topic of conversation, much less in the face of the situation he was experiencing with a panorama that was becoming discouraging and could attract the morbidity of public opinion.
“There was a strong moment when the word spread… Edith vomited.” Someone from production discovered it and notified those who considered it appropriate to inform them about what was happening. This information quickly spread as gossip. He reached the ears of the media who ordered their reporters to immediately go to the forum to obtain Edith’s testimony.
Aware of what happened, Shanik reacted with maternal and fraternal instinct to run to help her partner in the unexpected presence of the press who arrived at the recordings with the sole intention of asking González if she had relapsed or not. That attitude bothered Aspe, he considered it offensive.
“Then one day the cameras came to the forum. They wanted to talk to Edith, because they said that the illness had returned, that she was vomiting in the dressing room and I don’t know what. It made me angry! It was like an attack of entering the forum, and everything because someone who was a gossip who didn’t even know what was going to say that. When they arrived with Edith, I felt like protecting her,” he explained.
Without respecting the wishes of the actress regarding the fact that she had no comments to give, The press cornered her to insist on her objective. It was then that Aspe appeared to defend her friend without having any idea that she was actually in serious health condition. She acted out of an impulse to protect someone who requested privacy.
“The media arrived and, when they attacked her, I got involved. I got involved as if I were going to defend my sister. I told them ‘let’s see, it seems in bad taste that you are assuming something like that, because the day Edith vomited I also vomited.’ , here we all get sick. I think it’s very bad taste that because Edith got sick, they assume that she has an illness. That’s not done, that’s not right. I come to tell you that I also got sick,'” he said.
This is how he scared away the reporters. Then he tucked Edith in, who was moved by her gesture. This is how her friendship arose: “When that was over, Edith came up, took me by the hand and told me ‘I will never forget this’. It was the moment of wanting to protect her. (…) It was sisterhood.”
Shanik went further. His affection took it to the level of an even nobler gesture: He never asked González if the cancer had returned. She assumed the vomiting was a chance event from a heavy meal, so she didn’t bother her friend by questioning her about a topic she preferred to remain silent about.
Not everything is rosy in that story. Aspe was left with an injury that puts her to the test of crying, and that has to do with a phone call that she could not answer because she was on vacation and she postponed the answer until when she was calm. That call was from Edith González shortly before she died on June 13.
“I went to Turkey. I remember she spoke to me on the phone and I said ‘chin, someone is dialing me, I’ll talk to them later’. Later I found out that when she dialed me she was in the hospital. I didn’t talk to her anymore, she was on vacation. “When they told me that he had died, it was very strong news, I really didn’t expect it,” he said.
Despite the pain of her friend’s abrupt departure, Aspe gives greater weight to the pleasant memory that the actress left her as a woman devouring the world and enjoying every second while she was in This is my style, his last painting work.
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They met while hiking and fell in love. Months later she was diagnosed with cancer.
