Marcus spent six months alone in the dark with his fear, and it was the worst thing that ever happened to him, and there was nothing good in it while it was happening.

But because he lived, in the end, to name that loneliness out loud, to build something out of the exact shape of what he had needed and not had, that private suffering became a public gift.

Every family the fund reaches is a family that will not have to be as alone as he was.

Every grief counselor placed in a ward is someone standing where no one stood for him.

He could not go back and un-suffer those six months.