Unveiling The Story
Every book carries a voice—but ours carries two. One wrote with the weight of memory in his chest, the other walked beside the pages with care, grace, and quiet strength. Behind every chapter, there is not just a writer and an editor, but two lives braided together by love, illness, courage, and the desire to leave behind something tender and true.
Here is where you’ll meet us—Frédéric and Lily—before the fire, before the ink, as we truly are.
Frédéric Schepers – The Writer
I was not born a writer, but a man of duty, precision, and rescue.
My name is Frédéric Schepers. I once wore the uniform of the Belgian Air Force for 25 years and served behind the unseen lines of NATO, extracting lives from danger, holding the line where fear met chaos. Later, I became a voice at the edge of despair—fifteen years guiding the 101 and 112 emergency call centers in Belgium [Like 911 in the states], listening to cries, sometimes the last, and offering calm when the world cracked open.
But what shaped me most was not what I did—it was what I held in silence.
Loss. Love. The trembling edge between strength and tenderness.
Now I live in the Philippines, no longer the man of protocols but the man beside the woman he loves. Lily. She is the quiet center of this story.
As she walks her final path through the shadows of her battle, I write.
Not to escape—but to stay. To hold her, even when words are all I have left.
This book is not a monument. It is a fire we lit together.
And I am just a man—older now, softer—trying to keep that flame alive long enough to be seen.
Merlita Quizana, Lily – The Editor
Her name is Merlita, but everyone who knows her calls her Lily.
Born with a patient soul and eyes that understand silence, she spent most of her life teaching English—not as a subject, but as a way to open young minds to something larger than themselves. Her students remember her calm, the way she corrected not to shame but to uplift, always with a smile that said: “Try again. You can.”
In this book, Lily is more than an editor.
She is the breath behind each word that remains.
She read with tenderness when my hands shook. She noticed the weight of commas when I was too tired to speak. She held the pages like she holds life now—with clarity, kindness, and the courage not to rush what must unfold slowly.
Cancer took much, but not her dignity. Not her eye for beauty. Even when the body grew frail, her mind stayed precise, her touch steady. And through it all, she edited not just the book, but the man writing it.
This book lives because of her. I wrote with memory. She edited with grace. Together, we made something neither of us could have done alone.
