With deep sorrow, I received the news that Julio Chojeda Torres passed away on July 12, 2025, at the age of 76. That very morning, we exchanged a few voice messages over WhatsApp. He told me he was in the hospital due to a respiratory emergency, but later said he had received the revision of a document I had sent him and that he was working on other translations he hoped to finish soon, as if it were just another ordinary day. He was always like that, a responsible man who wanted to fulfill his duties. He never wanted to stop working, and in fact, he worked until the very last day of his life.
I met him thanks to my brother Blake, who had connected with him through networks related to spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). One day in 2009, Blake said to me, “Matt, you should speak and practice Spanish with this man who has SMA, his name is Julio and he lives in Lima.” Then we talked on Skype, and from that moment on began a great friendship that would last 16 years. The years have passed far too quickly.
If you speak with Julio’s friends, they’ll tell you countless stories, but there’s one thing they all agree on: Julio always knew just what to say to lift your spirits, to encourage you to keep fighting, to not give up in the face of daily challenges.
Ten years ago, I spoke with several people close to Julio because I was working on a biography about his life, a project he wanted me to write. Unfortunately, I didn’t carry it out at the time, but last year we revived the idea. I began recording many of our nighttime conversations, and now I have numerous accounts of his life in audio recordings that truly touch the heart.
In fact, I’m on vacation this week, and my plan was to make progress on the book — at least to finish transcribing many of the interviews. I wish he were still here to answer my questions, but I feel profoundly grateful to have had the chance to record so many conversations with him over the past year.
In June, I asked him to review a presentation I had the opportunity to give via Zoom to a religious order in Colombia. It was a testimony of faith. He corrected my Spanish thoroughly. He told me he was going to edit it quite a bit because “if the Spanish sounds bad, it’s not okay. Spanish has to sound good.” He wasn’t going to let me look ill-mannered in front of the nuns.
Some days later, he shared his own testimony of faith, telling me how for a long time he had felt pain over the injustice of his condition with SMA. He found peace with God thanks to many supportive friends from his parish and through the opportunity to work with Dr. Liliana Mayo and the Ann Sullivan Center of Peru.
He can tell this story better than I can, so what follows is a partial transcript of an interview he gave on June 28, 2025. It’s a small chapter in the life of Julio, when he began his collaboration with the Center, one that led to a lifetime full of friendships, both old and new, which he saw as being united through God’s plan for his life.
I was born into the Catholic faith, and I attended catechism classes, participated in Sunday Mass, and I was a child who stood out in school. I always considered myself to be the hope of the family, the one who was going to look after my mother and help my siblings, and suddenly I found myself with an illness that day by day took away my strength.
Although the doctors told me I was fine, I wasn’t an idiot who couldn’t realize I was losing strength. When they gave me the diagnosis, it was simply confirmation of what I already suspected, right? There had to be a reason. I just didn’t know what it was.
And that really shook me. I denied it. I thought God was very unfair. Honestly, I was still able to attend Mass and everything, but I stopped going. Because I felt bad. I felt bad for a long time. I didn’t cry or anything, but that’s how it was.
Later, people from the church came to support me. It’s also a miracle in itself that a young priest from the Church of the Visitation named Father Marcos met Dr. Liliana, and it turns out they had been classmates at San Marcos. Imagine that, Father Marcos told Dr. Liliana about me.
Father Marcos had studied with Dr. Liliana at San Marcos. They were classmates, and he belonged to the Montfortian order, at the Church of the Visitation. So he knew about me and talked to her about me.
First, Jeanie Schiefelbusch came. She was from a group called the Christian Foundation. They came to help poor people in Lima, in my area, because Jeanie was a friend of Dr. Liliana. Jeanie recommended helping the Church of the Visitation to set up a soup kitchen for the poor.
Then Father José, who was the parish priest at the time, came to my house and said, “Julio, do you think we could make about a hundred forms in English with a cover letter?”
I told him, “No problem.” I had taught myself English because I had to get in touch with institutions, because I had to research my condition. There was no cure, and it could affect other members of my family.
So you see how many threads start to come together.
So then Father José and Jeanie came to my house, asking if I could make a cover letter. I said, “Look, what I can do is a template. We’ll just change the names, that is, two or three templates depending on the situation.” They brought a lot of paper, and we worked all night!
Jeanie Schiefelbusch told Dr. Liliana about me. “Hey, I met someone who, etc., etc.,” and so Dr. Liliana came to my house. She asked me, “Julio, can you learn how to use a computer?”
“Of course I can,” I told her.
I had already been going to the youth meetings at the Church of the Visitation because my friend Fernando Flores, the brother of Enrique Flores the poet, used to take me. It’s all connected. He brought me. So I began to feel more at peace with the church and with God.
And I had read in a magazine in various languages at the church meeting space about a man with a disability who worked with computers at the Panama Canal. I said, My God, a computer, and this man works at the Panama Canal. And he had a disability? Yes, he used a wheelchair. So I asked God, I just want a chance to work. And then Dr. Liliana came and gave me that opportunity.
“Julio,” she said, “can you learn to use a computer?”
“Yes,” I told her, “yes, I can.”
She gave me a manual in English, and I understood it. I was the only one who knew how to use it, to print, and do all those things. And that’s how they gave me the job. They didn’t pay me anything at first; the church arranged for me to be brought there, and Dr. Liliana lent her car so they could bring me home in the afternoon.