Alejandro was a good guy who drank himself to death before he turned 40. He died last week, one more to go in 2016.

His dad is an alcoholic too. He started his son down the path by giving Alejandro beer while he was still in elementary school. From then on, Alejandro was his dad’s drinking buddy, even when the alcohol was adversely affecting the younger man’s health.

Confronting Alejandro’s drinking would have required confronting his own alcohol abuse, so his father insisted there was no problem. There were problems, all right. In the last couple of years, Alejandro often shit blood for weeks on end. And there was the time a drunken Alejandro pulled a gun on a guy who’d pissed him off. Anyone who could admit the truth knew alcohol was going to kill Alejandro one way or another.

In the last months of his life, as his health declined, Alejandro refused to go to rehab. His aunt told me she made arrangements for him at two separate residential facilities, but he wouldn’t check in to either. I wonder what sort of demons he lived with that made him decide to drink himself to death.

Alejandro was a talented lapidarist who shaped and polished stones to sell to tourists and other vendors alike. His work was good, and jewelry makers valued the cabochons he produced.

When selling at the Bridge, Alejandro kept his rough stones in a pan of water so potential customers could see how they’d look after they were polished. He cracked me up one hot summer day, when, in response to a man asking why the rocks were in water, he said, absolutely serious, it keeps them wetter. He was a smartass, but he was good at telling jokes, knew how to keep a straight face, knew the proper rhythm to use to make the punchline pop.

He had two preteen daughters who loved him fiercely. He loved them too, even when he wasn’t getting along with their mother. The girls did their childish best to look after him. I can only imagine how those girls are going to miss him as they grow, the pain they’ll feel when he’s not around for the milestones in their lives.

Alejandro’s death is such a waste. He didn’t have to die. I know it’s more complicated than just stop drinking, but people manage to do it. I think Alejandro could have done it too. I think he could have gotten sober, under different circumstances. I think he could have lived to a ripe old age, seen his little girls grow up, shaped and polished a lot of stones, told a lot more jokes. It wasn’t too late until it was.

I wasn’t close to Alejandro, but he was part of my community. I cared about him. I worried about him. I was a friend to his young daughters and their mother too. I hated what was happening to him. I was sad when I found out he was gone from this world.

I hope for Alejandro–as I hope for everyone who dies–that he no longer knows pain, physical or mental. I hope he is at peace.

He will be missed.