If there is one thing Christopher Cleveland will be remembered for, it is his smile. The 25-year-old Park View High School and Monroe Technology School graduate died Sunday, June 24, at his home in Antigua, Guatemala. Friends, family and travel buddies gathered at Sterling United Methodist Church Saturday, July 14, to remember the happy traveler who made the best of his short life.
Last week, Christopher’s parents Roy and Susan riffled through old photos of their son. Christopher wore a toothy grin an almost all of the photos.
WHEN CHRISTOPHER CLEVELAND was 8 years old, he, his mother and brother, Matthew Cleveland, were involved in a car accident. A truck driver struck the Cleveland’s van head-on. Christopher Cleveland, who was sitting in the front seat, suffered a depressed skull fracture due to the force of the impact.
"Christopher was forever changed that day," Matthew Cleveland said. "The skull fracture was repaired in surgery, but he had some trouble learning after that. He always had a difficult time in school."
When Christopher Cleveland was a teenager, he enrolled in Monroe Technology to study automobile mechanics. During his senior year of high school, while he was working on a car, Christopher Cleveland had his first in a long line of seizures.
"His dreams of becoming a car mechanic were scattered to the four winds," Matthew Cleveland said. "Eventually he decided to go live with my older brother, Andrew, in California. Andrew was going to sail long distance and Christopher was going to go with him."
Christopher Cleveland sailed along the west coast of North and Central America. After two years aboard the Tondelayo, he decided sailing was not for him and began backpacking though Central America.
While he was in Mexico, he enrolled in language school and eventually became fluent in Spanish.
He eventually settled in Lake Atalan, Guatemala, and married his first wife, Andrea.
"Christopher had a hard life, but he always made the best of the precious few years he had," Matthew Cleveland said.
Soon, the seizures caught up to him, he became extremely dizzy and weak all of the time, and developed alopecia universalis, which caused him to loose his hair and nails. He was also going through a divorce.
He took a trip to Antigua while his divorce was being finalized and met a woman named Evelyn.
"She was happy to accept Christopher as he was," Matthew Cleveland said.
But his illnesses eventually forced him to return to the States to get better.
AFTER COUNTLESS TRIPS to the doctor’s office and appointments with physical therapists, Christopher Cleveland decided to return to Guatemala to be with his fiancée, Evelyn.
In January, Susan and Roy Cleveland saw their son off from Dulles Airport to Antigua, Guatemala.
"It was really hard to say goodbye," Susan said. "But he was so happy to be back in Guatemala and he loved his Evelyn."
At around 8 p.m., July 10, Roy Cleveland came to the last photograph of Christopher Cleveland on his desktop computer. Christopher Cleveland waved goodbye to the camera, as he traveled along one of the many trails he hiked in Central America.
"Goodbye, Chris," Roy Cleveland said. "Now you’re free from all that pain."