He came to relieve me of a burden I'd been carrying for eight years.

The Vision

That Named the Movement

Captain's Log #001 — Part 3 of 5

📖 6 minute read

Oregon. End of 2022.

Fast-forward to the end of 2022. Four years after that conversation in Cambridge. And I find myself in Oregon. In the mountains. In the dead of winter. The kind of cold that doesn't argue — it simply arrives and stays.

As I enter a meditative state, I see my brother.

He comes to me — not as memory, not as metaphor — in a vision. And he comes to relieve me of the tremendous burden I had been carrying for so many years since his passing. Through this vision, he helps me recover from the deep pain and hopelessness I had leaned into after losing him. A hopelessness I had befriended, the way you befriend a stray dog — not because you want it, but because it won't leave.

The Love That Carried Me

Throughout this vision, I feel it completely. Through my whole body. The intense love he had for me throughout his lifetime. And how it was this very love — not ambition, not discipline, not grit — that had carried me through the most difficult challenges of my life. Long after he was gone. His love was still doing the carrying.

In that moment, I realized how I had been blessed with this incredible angle of love and understanding. It was through the people in my life who showed up for me. Without anyone asking them to. They just appeared — to help me, that kid reaching up with empty hands — completely of their own free will, and showed me empathy.

The Calling

In that moment of clarity and forgiveness — for all the pain and suffering I had endured — I understood my mission.

My calling.

It was to start a movement of showing up for others in a way that makes their efforts visible and their potential undeniable. Because they remember — they remember — how powerful they really are. In exactly the same way my brother showed up for me.

And for me to continue spreading his love in the world. Through mentorship. Through accountability. Through genuinely showing up for others with such enthusiasm, such ferocity of presence, that my brother might still be alive today — if he had been on the receiving end of it.

I called it COE. A covenant we all signed. Of education. Of being there for others.

But really — and I suspect you already know this — it's just another way of expressing love. The kind of love my brother showed me, long before the darkness took him.

Next, I'll tell you exactly what we're building — and how we measure whether it's working.

→ Read the full manifesto at coveofedu.org/log/001

With love, Izzy