Helena Agi, a life of generosity, a death in happiness

It was, as Helana Agi's mother put it, "the end of a fairy tale."

The end came on a U.S. Airways plane as it was landing at the airport in Orlando, Fla. Helana, 31, was on her honeymoon with her new husband, Walter Cavalcanti, last Sunday.

Walter reached out to touch his bride's hand and it went limp. She had lapsed into a coma. She was revived briefly in Florida Hospital East Orlando, but doctors said she was brain-dead. She was pronounced dead on Monday.

"She was my true love," said Walter, 30, a baggage handler for U.S. Airways. "They don't know the cause of death."

When Walter returned to Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday, his fellow employees lined the tarmac to offer their condolences.

When the plane bearing his wife's body arrived that afternoon, he asked his supervisor to allow him to bring it in, and he helped carry the casket to a waiting van for the ride to a funeral home.

The two were married Oct. 23 at Our Lady of Calvary Church, Walter's parish. Since Helana was Jewish and Walter Catholic, the ceremony was performed by the Rev. John Paul and Rabbi Sholom Berris.

"It was a beautiful ceremony," said Helana's mother, Jacqueline Agi. "She was a beautiful woman."

After the ceremony, the couple stayed at the Marriott Airport Hotel and the next afternoon boarded the plane to Orlando.

Helana had a number of health issues in her life. At age 5, she suffered from neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer that required weeks of hospital treatment.

As an adult, she was diagnosed with hepatitis C, and she suffered from asthma. But it was unknown if any of those conditions contributed to her sudden death.

"She seemed fine," Walter said.

Helana was born in Philadelphia to Jacqueline and Samuel Agi. She graduated from George Washington High School, attended the College of New Jersey for a couple of years and graduated from Holy Family University with a degree in elementary education.

Her ambition was to teach kindergarten, but recently she was working part time in the beauty shop operated by her sister, Serena Breen, in the Northeast, where the family lives.

Helana was a charitable woman engaged in various fundraising causes. In fact, she and Walter met at a cancer fundraiser at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral in March 2003.

"She was a very dear person," her husband said. "Very caring."

Besides her husband, she is survived by her parents and sister.

Services: 1 p.m. Sunday at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael Sacks funeral home, 310 Second Street Pike, Southampton. An ecumenical prayer service will be conducted by Father Paul and Rabbi Berris at 11 a.m. Monday at Our Lady of Calvary Church, 11027 Knights Road.