That, it turned out, I had in abundance.

Every month I read the grant applications myself, every one of them, because I would not let the children on those pages become mere figures in a ledger.

And every month, dozens of mothers received a telephone call telling them that their child’s surgery was paid for, in full, with no strings and no debt and no nightmare number left waiting on the kitchen table.

I insisted on that phrasing, in the letters we sent, no strings and no debt, because I remembered too well how charity sometimes came with hooks in it, with forms and follow-ups and the quiet expectation of gratitude performed on command.