Mario Romero-Vasquez

It is hard to put a person like Mario into words, because Mario was someone you had to experience.

He could make friends anywhere. He was a people person through and through. The kind of person who could walk into a room knowing no one and leave having made a connection. He genuinely loved people, hearing their stories, laughing with them, and making them feel like they had known each other much longer than they had.

Mario loved fiercely. If he loved you, you knew it. That was especially true of the life he shared with his husband. From the moment they met, Mario changed the way he saw the world and what life could be. Together they built a life full of love, laughter, adventures, challenges, ridiculous moments, kisses, sarcastic eyerolls and countless memories. Mario didn’t simply become part of his life; he changed its course.

Mario was a kid at heart, and he believed in magic. Really believed in it. He believed in fairytales and fantasy and in the possibility that there was still something extraordinary waiting around the corner. He loved anime and could disappear into those worlds for hours. Maybe that was part of why he approached life the way he did. Every new day held the possibility of something he hadn’t seen, tasted, tried, or experienced yet.

Mario was also completely, unapologetically himself. He didn’t care if something made him look funny or if other people didn’t understand it. If he wanted to wear something, he wore it. If he wanted to eat something, he ate it. If something sounded fun, he wanted to try it. He wasn’t interested in living his life according to what anyone else thought it should look like.

Mario loved to travel because going somewhere new meant getting to experience another piece of the world. He wanted to explore, wander, eat the food, meet the people, and find the places you wouldn’t necessarily see in a travel guide. He was just as interested in the little hole-in-the-wall down the street as he was in whatever attraction everyone else came to see. It wasn’t about checking places off a list. He wanted to experience them.

Mario left this world far too quickly and far too soon. There wasn’t enough time to prepare to lose him, and thirty-seven years was nowhere near enough time to have him. There should have been more places to go, more things to taste, more people to meet, more adventures to chase, and more ordinary days that Mario would somehow make extraordinary. There should have been more time for him to keep finding the magic he believed was everywhere and more time for the people who loved him to experience that magic with him.

Mario leaves pieces of himself everywhere: in the people he loved, the friendships he made, the stories that will continue to be told, and the lives that are different simply because he was there.

He loved fiercely. He lived fully. And he never stopped believing in magic.

“To Infinity and Beyond”