Monica Henk when I first met her

Monica was always my biggest fan and greatest supporter. I make sure to thank her in every book I release. She died in 2007 in a hit-and-run, and the NYPD mangled the investigation (most likely because she was a heavily tattooed immigrant). It wasn’t until me and her brother, Kike, mounted a large campaign that was picked up by News 1, News 5, Telemundo, and Univision, that anyone exdpressed any interest.

I met her at Cassiopia in 2000, and she barely spoke English. We both worked there, yet it took me attending events and hanging out with the crew for her to realize anything.
When I came down with brain cancer in 2001, it was a total surprise to everyone, and even though she was only 21 and we’d been dating for 3 months, she visited me every day at the hospital. Something my parents never did. They never visited at all.

We married shortly after, something I never thought I would do as a teenager!
I drew this illustration as the design for her memorial concert. Unsane, Indecision, Locked in a Vacancy, and quite a few other bands played. Since then, I’ve used it in the forward of every book I’ve written,
She did quite a bit of alternative modelling and was the perfect model for 5 of my oil paintings so far, including the cover for my debut novel, The Black Seas of Infinity, where the death of a man’s wife is part of what sets him on a very dark path.
My friend Christine tells me, many people never meet that one person they bond with in life; you’re lucky if it happens even once, however brief. Maybe she’s right.