A man’s extreme romantic gesture turned to tragedy when he drowned during an underwater proposal, NBC News reported.
Steven Weber and his girlfriend, Kenesha Antoine, were staying at an island resort in Tanzania when the tragedy struck.
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Steven seemed to have it all planned out.
The pair had booked an underwater room at the Manta Resort on Pemba Island, and while Kenesha stood inside the room, Steven swam down and pressed a note in a waterproof bag up to the window for her to read.
Kenesha got the whole thing on her phone.
“I can’t hold my breath long enough to tell you everything I love about you. But…everything I love about you I love more every day,” one side of the note read.
On the other, he had written, “Will you marry me?”
After pulling out a ring box, Steven swam up and Kenesha stopped recording. She never saw him alive again.
“You never emerged from those depths, so you never got to hear my answer, ‘Yes! Yes! A million times, yes, I will marry you!!'” Kenesha wrote in a Facebook post . “We never got to embrace and celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives together, as the best day of our lives turned into the worst, in the cruelest twist of fate imaginable.”
While the details of Steven’s death aren’t clear, his sister, Mandy Hoffman, says that some boaters pulled his body out of the water.
“They attempted CPR and at that point in time he did have a light pulse,” she told NBC News. “However, they were not able to bring him back and that’s what we know right now.”
In the days since his passing, a GoFundMe page was established to help cover the costs of Steven’s return to America and his burial.
Since it was created three days ago, the fundraiser has raised over $21,000 of its $25,000 goal.
According Mandy, Steven did not have insurance and so any funds raised will go towards moving his body home, as well as funeral expenses.
Debra Weber, Steven’s mother, took to Facebook on Wednesday to express her grief at the loss of her son.
In her post , she wrote that receiving “the call” was the worst tragedy of her life.
“Steven was so loved by everyone,” she said. “I can’t begin to thank everyone for their prayers and the outpouring of kindness and love.”
She added, “My baby boy is almost home. I feel I’ve been waiting an eternity.”
Mandy also shared a post in the wake of her brother’s untimely passing.
“Thursday, September 19, 2019 was the worst day of my life,” she wrote in the post . “However, what I have experienced since that day is the most amazing outpouring of love and support from old and new friends, acquaintances, relatives near and far, and complete strangers.”
She added, “Steven deserves all the honor and love he is receiving. He gave so much of his own.”
Meanwhile, Kensha is understandably devastated.
“I will try to take solace in the fact that we enjoyed the most amazing bucket list experiences these past few days, and that we both were so happy and absolutely giddy with excitement in our final moments together,” she wrote in her post.
“I will find you and marry you in the next lifetime, and the next, and the next, and the next.
“Wherever in the universe Steven’s spirit now resides…he’s probably entertaining someone with a story about how he royally screwed up that proposal and died while being extra.”
h/t: NBC News , Facebook | Kenesha Antoine
