It's hard for me to write these lines without my throat tightening a little. Because when someone like Augusto leaves, it's not just one person who leaves: a way of being, a way of thinking with elegance, of looking with depth, and of living with humanity leaves with them. And yet, I need to do it. I need to put down in writing the immense joy of having crossed paths with him in this life... and the void he leaves now, in me and in the air of the society we live in.
Sometimes life gives you encounters that don't announce their importance. They arrive without ceremony, almost by chance. I stumbled upon Augusto like that, and over time I understood that it wasn't a simple crossing: it was luck. Because encountering such a privileged mind not only awakens admiration; it forces you, without imposing it, to be better: to think more clearly, to measure your words more carefully, to listen before responding. Augusto had that kind of intelligence that doesn't need to prove anything. He didn't compete to shine: he illuminatedBut if you ask me what I miss most, it's not just his lucidity (which was immense), but his way of being. Augusto had something rare and precious: he made the difficult easy. He turned any conversation into a safe space. You could arrive in a hurry, tired, or worried, and without realizing it, you'd end up breathing differently. There was an active calm about him: a presence that organized the atmosphere without dominating it, as if he carried a natural sense of balance within himAnd, above all, he had a very fine, sharp, intelligent, but never cruel sense of humor. A humor that didn't hurt: it refined. He could dismantle an absurd solemnity with an exact phrase, at the exact moment, and leave you laughing at yourself without feeling small; on the contrary, you felt more human. In times when irony is confused with contempt, he had that rare virtue of grace that builds.
Then there was his immense gift for storytelling. A smile escapes me here, because Augusto was a tremendous storyteller. He didn't tell anecdotes: he built scenes. He placed the setting before you, he drew the characters, he led you through the details as someone who knows that the truth of things lies there. And when he finished, you were left laughing, yes... but also understanding. Because in his stories there was always something more: a lesson without a moral, a teaching without a sermon
And today I also need to say something that is essential to me: its public importance for Lanzarote, its mark on the collective, on what sustains an islandBecause Augusto was not only the brilliant teacher and dear friend; he was also someone who understood very early on that in Lanzarote, the future is played out on two boards that condition everything: planning and water. From public responsibility, we contributed to laying the foundations for management and anticipating needs on an island where every territorial decision weighs decades; and this vision was not theoretical: it was practical, grounded in reality and its limits.In hydraulic matters, his technical profile and his time in responsibilities linked to works and planning left a very clear idea: without hydraulic infrastructure, there is no cohesion, no development, no daily dignity. And that awareness translated into institutional drive to prioritize sanitation, purification, and reuse actions, which later crystallized into concrete instruments and programsOn the one hand, the PSDR (Sanitation, Purification, and Reuse Plan) was specifically reflected in Lanzarote, to the point that the Directorate-General for Water itself even convened technical assistance to draft the projects contemplated in the PSDR for the island. On the other hand, many of those needs and works ended up fitting within the state framework, through the National Hydrological Plan and its Investment Annex, which includes actions in Lanzarote related to purification, sanitation, and rainwater.I don't say this to make a cold inventory of milestones, because that's not how I want to remember him. I say it because, when I think of Augusto, I cannot separate the friend from the public servant, nor the man from the legacy. There are people whose intelligence enhances a conversation; and there are people whose intelligence, moreover, helps to order the future of their land. Augusto, for me, belongs to that lineage.
That is why his absence weighs twice as much. It weighs on a personal level: in that temptation to want to tell him anything, in the impulse to seek his gaze to confirm that there is still sense, in the certainty that with him the world was a little more habitable. And it weighs on a collective level: because when people like him leave, the air is impoverished. A way of conversing, of disagreeing without breaking, of thinking without shouting, of serving without vanity is lost.
Today I want to hold onto gratitude. The deep joy of having crossed paths with him. Of having learned by his side even without him intending to teach. And with an intimate responsibility: that his example not remain a beautiful memory, but rather a way of being a little more dignified, a little more serene, a little more human.
Augusto, thank you. Thank you for your humor, for your clarity, for your stories, for your respect. Thank you for your mark on the lives of those who loved you… and for your mark on the island you helped to think about and sustain.Farewell, master.
Farewell, friend.