I was going to have lunch with Pablo and Janot in two weeks.

I met Pablo through John Crowley, as a part of the Boston area humanitarian and disaster response gang. He was instantaneously one of my favorite people – intense, warm, and utterly fixated on making things Better. He had somehow landed a gig with the International Red Cross Red Crescent teaching about climate science and probability through game mechanics.

He taught me that I didn’t need to be so serious in my approaches. He taught me people are willing to be vulnerable if you provide them some scaffolding and simply ask them to dive in, assuring them that uncertainty is a part of all that we do and that not knowing how to play the game couldn’t prevent you from playing it.

He helped me, the anxious, risk-averse, hermit that I am, not only take risks, but ask others to do so as well, and to make the whole thing playful. Of COURSE you strike out sometimes, that’s how probability works. Of COURSE it’s not a reflection on your moral character when you strike out in a game or on a project, that just means you’re trying new things.

He died unexpectedly weekend before last. There are now nearly 500 of us in a wide-ranging international WhatsApp group trading stories of how he touched us and changed the world for the better.

For me, there are four main times that stand out.

One was going to Development and Climate Days the weekend between the two weeks of COP20 in Lima, Peru with Pablo to present on (and embed a game about) water point maintenance in Tanzania. He also brought Tomás Saraceno, and they worked together for many more years. I remember being squished in the back of a taxi with the two of them on either side, arguing with Argentinian fervor, about how to shake the people at the event out of their talking points and into being creative. They were utterly in agreement about their goal, and argued with love about the best approach to get there. While everyone else approached the theme of the event “zero poverty, zero emissions, within a generation” with an attitude of “this is going to be difficult work but we MIGHT be able to pull it off,” Tomás and Pablo instead built a cathedral out of plastic bags and spoke about floating cities. I felt the fire in my belly in an utterly unabashed way during those days with them. You can read more about it on my blog and on the aerocene blog. A truly inspiring human, while also training the next generation and never succumbing to the One Great Man story.

The second was around his work for forecast-based financing. He devised and played a game with people all the way from the frontline population all the way up through funders and policy makers about how we can now predict weather far enough out to change our behavior. We could prepare on short notice for things like flooding, rather than expending many more resources and much more suffering on response after fields have been flooded. The group deployed this successfully in multiple countries. And he asked me to do stick figures to explain it! A truly skilled driver of change and sustained impact.

The third was making an attempt to explain formal/informal disaster response dynamics by building a game. I had been trying to explain this idea and embed it in my work for years, and Pablo’s ability to explain complex systems and bring people along for the ride made me want to try, too. It was a total swing and a miss (as a play tester asked me “do you want this to be accurate or do you want it to be fun?” “Accurate,” I replied. “Then it will not be fun.”) for me, but I had such a great time developing the game and play testing it, deepening ties across the sector and sparking other creating thinking in the process. Anytime I brought him a wild-ass idea, he would not just yes-and it, he would yes-and-here-is-how-I-can-help, including my governance birthday party and this game. He knew how to give space for you to try things out, but he was always in the wings to help out the moment you wanted it. He let me try something, and fail at it, in a way that was safe for all involved. A truly skilled mentor.

The fourth was having dinner at his home with Janot and him. There was so much laughter, and always still that drive to make everything better. Most of all, in all of this, he was my friend.

Through each of these and more, he was warm, authentic, and gave the best bear hugs. He somehow showed compassion to the abyss and all who stare into it. He made it ok to laugh while sitting at the edge, not AT the void, but WITH it.

You will be missed, friend. May I carry you with me, and all that you taught me, in all that I do.