CLEVELAND — Edy Vasquez was drawn to the waters of Lake Erie, oftentimes walking at Edgewater Park with his uncle Emelson Melendez
"He would say, 'I want to jump in the lake, and I said, 'You can't here, because the rocks are dangerous," Melendez recalled, his words translated from Spanish. "'Go to the beach and go swimming there.'"
Last Sunday, the 22-year-old did not take his uncle's advice.
"His friends were there with him. They jumped into the water," Melendez said. "When he was getting close to the shore near the rocks he started screaming for help. His friends were already by the shore and they couldn't help him, and he went under."
Rescue crews looked for the Guatemala native, and would not stop until they found his body under the water.
When Vazquez left the house, he told his uncle he was going to the garage to fix a part. The young man was a mechanic by trade.
"If I knew he was going there, I would have gone with him," Melendez told 3News. "Or better yet, stopped him from going."
Melendez's nephew loved was a strong swimmer, he says. He doesn't know if Vazquez caught a leg cramp or if an undertow caught him. Either way, they are now struggling with the task of raising money to send him back to Guatemala to his parents.
"I was his nanny when he was first born," Vazquez's aunt Nydia Melendez said, "so for me, he was like a son."
Nydia says Vazquez was only here for eight months. Her suffering is already immense, having also recently lost her husband. Now, her nephew is gone, too.
"I have no words," she wept. "I don't know why God has given me so much suffering."
The family has started a GoFundMe, as it is very costly to send Edy's body back to their home country. Cremation is not a option, for their belief is to bury the body and allow their sister to see her son one last time, a son who came here with dreams of opening his own garage, supporting his parents, and eventually marrying the girlfriend he left behind.
"I can't believe it, I can't believe it," Emelson said. "I can't believe this happened to him."