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Yesterday at 10am, AJ Perez’s body was buried at Manila Memorial Sucat, Parañaque. Before the burial, a mass has been offered for the late actor and some people close to him delivered eulogies including his high school batch mates and teacher at La Salle Greenhills, where AJ finished his high school education.

Among the people who present their eulogies, Steph Ayson, the late actor’s non-showbiz girlfriend is the one who gave the most heart-warming eulogy.

Steph Ayson, at the left.

“I want to be a teacher, a lawyer, and suddenly a doctor. I want to be able to write well, to sing well, and to dance well. All of those changed except one. I knew I want to marry a guy. And his name was AJ Perez.”

Steph narrated how she met AJ through a common friend and how she tried to act nonchalant during their first meeting when, in fact, her “emotions were screaming.”

“I was a silly girl, writing our names beside each other. I was scribbling hearts and playing Flames and I would wake up every Saturday just to watch “About Your Love.” I would sit in front of the TV and watch ASAP. I was a fan and I would like to think I was the biggest fan he had,” Steph said.

The two young couple met September of 2007 and on the 14th of February, AJ asked Steph to be his girlfriend.

“Cheesy, but that’s AJ. Cheesy, sweet, sincere. He wanted to promise me the world, but I asked him not to. Because I was too afraid to hurt him, but he promised anyway, and he kept each one of them. He asked for my full trust. I admitted I was having a difficulty, but showed me that he knows what trust means and he’ll never do anything to break that,” she narrated.

“He told me that even if I don’t say ‘I love you’ back away or show him sweetness just like he would, his exact words were, ‘I would wait a lifetime.’”

She added that while she felt mad about AJ’s death, “if this is God’s way of showing me forever, I accept it… AJ taught me how to love. He was very selfless. His love was the most pure thing on Earth. It was, in every way, unconditional. And probably that’s the message here. He wants all of us to love the way he did also.”

“He made me so happy, and even to his last day, he would talk to me and tell me that ‘I want you always to be happy. I don’t want you sad. I want you to smile a lot. You know why? Because I love you.’ And I know as the days go by it will be very difficult but AJ would say he’d want us to be happy. That’s the way he lived. He was happy,” she said.

Steph ended her eulogy: “To my baby, you’ll always be in my heart. Thank you for making my dreams come true. I’ll take care of your family for you. And I’ll love the way you loved me.”

She also decided to publicized her Twitter account so she could share to everyone the AJ that she knows. She even stated that she was AJ’s fan, too.

Claudine Barretto also attended AJ Perez’s wake to comfort Steph Ayson saying: “What happened to me is what happening to her right now”. Claudine worked with AJ while she was still a Kapamilya in the teleserye “Iisa Pa Lamang”.  She believed that Steph is going through the same pain she felt when her ex-boyfriend and matinee idol Rico Yan died 9 years ago. Claudine guaranteed Steph that she will always be there for her while coping with AJ’s death.