Cristian Acosta-Flores is remembered for his big giving heart.
His mother recalled one day while he was away at college, Acosta-Flores entered a fast food restaurant to get something to eat. Instead he walked out to feed a homeless man in front of the retaurant with the few dollars he had left.
“You could ask him to help you and he’s there,” said his grandmother Mary Grimes. “He was always like that. He would lend a hand to anybody who asked. That was his personality.”
This is just one of many examples his mother, Tanya Cruz Flores, remembered about her son who passed away suddenly due to complications of an enlarged heart in 2014 one day before his 19th birthday.
“It was ironic that he died of an enlarged heart because he did have a big heart,” Cruz Flores said.
To carry on his legacy and with the hope of saving lives, Acosta-Flores’s family started the first Cristian’s Big Heart 5K Run. The Aug. 30 event will be held at at Monteville Park in Eastlake, with proceeds going to the Eric Peredes Save A Life Foundation for their Screen-A-Teen program.
Acosta-Flores graduated from Olympian High School in 2013 and had just completed his first year of college at San Jose State University studying to become a special education teacher. He came home for a few days at the start of his sophomore year to celebrate his 19th birthday on Sept. 2.
But he never got up to celebrate.
“I woke up Sept. 1 and just found him in his bed passed away,” Cruz Flores said.
His mother said the fact that Acosta-Flores had an enlarged heart caught her by surprise because he never complained about chest pains and appeared to be healthy. He was also very active in high school athletics, playing on the football team and boys lacrosse.
Since Acosta-Flores’s death his mother is making sure that no other members in her family will succumb to a heart defect. She got herself, her husband and three children screened. Her fourth son will be screened the day of the 5K walk/run.
She said everyone in her family has checked out with normal hearts.
She said the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office officially ruled his death was due to an enlarged heart.
Now Cruz Flores is on a crusade and hopes that no parent will feel the lost of their child to a heart defect. One way she is doing this is by hosting the 5K run/walk where there will be opportunities for teenagers to get their heart screened, something Acosta-Flores never did.
Cruz Flores believes if she had ever had her son’s heart screened, he would would be alive today.
“I think if I would have gotten him tested, then they would have been able to detect it, but its not something that you normally think about doing,” she said.
To honor Acosta-Flores, in June his family gave away scholarships to a student at Eastlake High School and Olympian High School to attend San Jose State University.
