People ask if I crossed paths with philanthropist David Koch, whose death is being mourned today, and the answer is yes.

When I resolved to sample New York City’s culture in my thirties on a modest salary, I discovered the affordable City Opera at Lincoln Center, already the object of generosity that led to the renaming of the David H. Koch Theater. It gave me joy.

Years later, when I went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to pursue cancer treatment, the first building I saw after I parked my car was the giant David Koch Cancer Research Pavilion. It gave me hope.

And everywhere I went in the liberty movement over forty years, where there was a good cause, David Koch seemed to be somewhere in the background giving support, whether it was economic liberty, peace between nations, free trade, freedom to marry, or free speech. It gave me inspiration.

His death leaves the world poorer.