I want you to meet my friend Aldo, here he was in Mexico with his wife, Paige. (Before they got married, actually!)

The past couple of years have been really hard for our close circle of friends. One of our favorite humans, Aldo, was diagnosed with colon cancer before his 40th birthday. And it was particularly rare, aggressive, and advanced when it was found. Aldo’s life wasn’t defined by the c-word, and unicorns became the symbol of his battle, and he never, ever stopped being funny, even at the bitter end. That’s about all I want to say about Aldo’s journey with cancer.

*Aldo waiting for a drink and a snack in Mexico*

Because he was more than his disease.

Aldo was, without hyperbole, the single greatest man you could have met. He was the Golden Retriever puppy of humans: he loved everybody, he loved everything, he would go anywhere, he would try anything, he would eat anything and finish it in record time, when he was crabby he either needed a snack or a nap, and everyone who met him loved him immediately.

He was incapable of deception - his growing smile and the laugh that was about to escape him any time he tried made it ridiculously hilarious to us all. Even little silly white lies? He didn’t have it in him. He was so kind, and fun loving, and so quick with a joke - and sometimes they were even hysterically funny.

The first time we went to Mexico with Paige and Aldo was right after Aldo’s birthday, and just before my first wedding anniversary. Aldo and Paige threw all caution to the wind, and trusted my husband’s plan to go a little off the beaten path and go places we’d never gone before. These places are now popular to a fault thanks to Instagram, but at the time, this was a place only the most dedicated of Euro backpackers visited. We rolled into a sleepy town, no sidewalks, stray dogs everywhere, one broken ATM on the square, a handful of tiny restaurants, and were let into the house we’d rented for a criminally low price.

(The home was so beautiful that my husband and I have stayed there again, even though these days it’s more expensive and the town has exploded in popularity and progressed in other ways and there’s a fresh sidewalk out front.)

We decided to try the “fancy” restaurant in town, because it was on the water with a pier stretching into the lake. We walked past a small, crumbling police station, down a hill and past the town square, and we still weren’t sold on this town and experience. We were greeted at the restaurant, followed the waiter down a winding path through the palms, and we were brought directly to the side of the lake, and seated at a plastic table, under a beer-sponsored awning.

The lake was so clear we could see tiny fish playing around the lily pads. We ordered “micherritas” which were giant schooner glasses full of incredibly freshly made margarita, with bottles of open beers places neck-down in the drink. We ordered sopa de lima, a local specialty, and empanadas de chaya (a local green veggie similar to spinach). Everything came quickly, and left us all groaning with pleasure with every bite. We finished with brownie sundaes, which I have discovered are nearly always on the dessert menus in that area of Mexico.

The sun was sinking and blue hour was rolling in, and Aldo suggested we all walk down the end of the pier, check out the lake a little closer, maybe put our feet in. Aldo, with his childlike sense of fun and impulsivity, immediately got his feet in.

“Ohhhh, YEAH! Guys, this is fucking NICE.” He stood on the edge of the dock, and proceeded to flip into the water. We had not worn swimsuits or planned on going in. My husband was the next one in. He took off his shirt, took his phone out of his pocket, and jumped into the lake. Paige and I, who had been standing on steps from the dock into the lake, knee deep, followed suit. In the dresses we’d worn to dinner. Within less than two minutes, we’d abandoned our plans to stay dry, and following Aldo’s lead we were playing in the lake as the sunlight dissipated.

We took videos and photos of us all, positively electric with glee, laughing and splashing in the water. I posted a panoramic shot of the lake and the sunset and us all in the water on social media and said I wanted to live there forever. When the sky was fully a deep blue, and the birds had stopped singing for the night, we all climbed the wooden steps, sopping wet. We picked up our shoes and laughed all the way back to our rental house, wet footsteps behind us, clothes dripping.

It was just the first of many times we all fell in love with that lake and our time there.

But the memory that catches in my throat, that cracks my heart wide open when I think of it, was on a different trip to that lake, to that restaurant. It was our last night in town that particular trip, and as the sun sank behind the trees, we all started getting out of the water, toweling off, and making our way back down the pier to our bug spray, our giant cocktails, our bowls of soup, our brownie sundaes.

One by one, as we exited, Aldo would direct at us an exasperated “Awww, come ON! It’s our LAST NIGHT! The water is perfect! Stay in with me!”

Eventually, it was just Aldo there in the lake, at the end of the pier, by himself, playing. As we all sat and laughed and chatted and ate, we watched Aldo do handstands, feet flailing in the air before hitting the water and splashing. We watched Aldo throw a rock, then dive under to try to find it to throw it again. We watched him just splash the water with his hands, jump off the pier, and then do it all over again.

We watched as Aldo became an inky blue shadow, against the inky blue lake, and then eventually the lake and the sky were the same deep indigo, and Aldo was just the sound of laughing and splashing in the water, the only sound on the lake, the birds had gone to bed.

Finally, we heard Aldo’s heavy footsteps slapping on the wooden pier, and eventually he appeared in the light from the restaurant, sopping wet, hair plastered to his face, water running off his body. His towel was at the table. He picked it off the back of the plastic chair, and said, “You guys MISSED IT. The water is SO NICE!” and wiped the water from his face. In the next movement, he popped half an empanada in his mouth and a look of bliss and love crossed his face, and he groaned and said, “Ohhhhh. OHHHH YEAH. This is HELLA good!” And then started laughing for no reason, but we all laughed with him, his enthusiasm for the food, his playing in the lake without us, him standing there still sopping wet, he was like a big, wonderful, happy child.

And that’s what I’ve taken from my time with Aldo. Remembering to play, to stay a little longer, to squeeze out every last moment of goodness and fun.

We return to the lake soon, Aldo in our hearts instead of in our rental van. And once the light has faded and I’ve returned to the table, I will remember the laughter echoing across the dark lake and sky, when all the birds have gone to bed, and all that remains is a bit of warmth from the day, with the certainty that the next morning, the lake will still be there, and so will Aldo, in some small way.

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