Roger A. Chaufornier bent over and gently kissed his brother’s coffin after reading from the scripture his funeral May 17.
The gesture was a fitting, understated farewell to Alexander Chaufornier, 18, who friends and family described as quiet, loyal and loving. Alex died in his sleep in his Potomac home May 11, weeks before he was set to graduate from Winston Churchill High School.
Alex is survived by his father Roger L. Chaufornier, his mother Nancy Chaufornier, his brothers Roger A. Chaufornier, 20, Nicholas, 14, and Lucas, 12, and his sister Eliza, 5.
The Rev. Peter Vaghi addressed the young people, including dozens of Churchill students among the nearly 300 that attended Alex’s funeral at Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda on Tuesday. “Time will help you,” Vaghi said. “Show your love for each other as you have in these recent days.”
That task came easily to friends who described Alex’s passive nature as a comforting and stabilizing force in their lives.
Brendon O’Neil met Alex when he was a freshman at Thomas Wootton High School and Alex was a freshman at Churchill. O’Neil was failing out of school, entrenched in family problems, and seeing a therapist. “For a long time, he was my only source of happiness. He got me through the toughest time in my entire life. He got me through every single thing,” O’Neil said. “He got me back on my feet and eventually he got me back to where I am today.” O’Neil, who will graduate next month as valedictorian of his class at a Virginia boarding school and attend Syracuse on a full scholarship next year, said that if not for Alex’s influence, he might not be alive.
“He was just the definition of a life-long best friend for me,” said Patrick Johnson, a senior at Walt Whitman High School. Johnson’s mother and Nancy Chaufornier were friends while pregnant with their sons, and the boys were friends ever since being born just two months apart.
“I never had a fight with him. Never. I knew him for 17 years and I never, ever had a fight with him. Not even a little one,” Johnson said.
Alex — known to some friends as "Chafo" — was an avid skateboarder and a talented photographer. He loved his car, and working with computers and other gadgets. When friends needed something fixed, they took it to Alex. He had planned to attend Montgomery College and then perhaps try to move into an engineering program at a four-year university.
Underneath his quiet façade, Alex had a goofy, mischievous sense of humor and often tried to cheer up friends when they were sick or upset.
Tess Brescia, Alex’s childhood nanny and a lifelong family friend said that even as a young child, Alex made considerate gestures like holding doors for the elderly.
“He was THE KIND of kid that was always thinking about somebody else,” she said.
Friends also recalled Alex’s more idiosyncratic likes: bowling, soup, and the color orange.
Roger A. Chaufornier had spoken to his brother Alex for three hours May 11, the evening before he was found dead in his bedroom. “If he had lived through the night we probably would have been a lot closer, because that conversation we had the night before was pretty deep,” Roger A. Chaufornier said.
Asked what he thought of when recalling his brother, Roger A. Chaufornier replied, “His smile. … He was a kid that just smiled so brightly. Just a happy kid.”
Friends caught that smile in a DVD slideshow of Alex skating, hanging out with friends at prom, and holding sister Eliza on a carousel, that played at the funeral reception. They had planned a candlelight vigil in his memory May 17.
“He loved his friends, loved them,” Roger A. Chaufornier said.