The foundation grew rapidly.

Word spread through the Alaskan teaching networks. We funded emergency rent for a middle-school science teacher battling breast cancer.

We provided travel grants for an educator needing heart surgery in Seattle. We bought thousands of books for underfunded classroom libraries.

Every time I signed a grant check, I felt the heavy chain of grief shorten just a little bit more. Greg had wanted my daughter’s illness to become his personal liquidity.

Instead, her death became medicine. It became shelter. It became a safety net for strangers who might otherwise have fallen through the cracks.

Greg and Chloe’s marriage didn’t last the year. She divorced him the moment she realized he was financially radioactive and facing state fraud charges.