Remembering Dave: Support for His Loved Ones

Hello all,

This is Kyla, Jennifer’s daughter and, as Dave would put it, his “pretty much step daughter”.

My mom and Dave were about to start their lives together in Alaska, something they had been dreaming about for the past two years. Their plan was to find a small piece of land and eventually build a house on it.

After moving up here at the end of the September, Dave found a job he loved with people he loved while my mom finished out her final travel nursing contract in Oregon.

Everything changed this December when the kids at Mr. Dave’s work were asking why he looked so yellow and an ER visit found a mass on his pancreas that had metastasized to his liver.

December was a blur as we processed the news. He started countless visits to the hospital accompanied, very thankfully, by Angie, his boss and friend.

My mom finished her travel nursing contract in an attempt to save money so they could afford rent/bills so she could stay at home and take care of him while Dave started chemotherapy.

I started the long drive with my mom from Portland, Oregon to Anchorage at the end of December to get there as fast as we could (48 hours of driving remote icy roads in 4 days) and arrived on the night of December 30th, after his 1st day of chemo where his friend and brother Greg was with him. Unfortunately, that day did not go as planned, rather than going home after chemo, he was brought to the hospital for surgery and stayed there until the end.

What we hoped would be a long fight with cancer turned into a second surgery and two weeks of battling severe pain.

Thanks to Kalyn, Dave’s sister, we were able to get a last minute flight with his mother Connie to Anchorage late Sunday night and we went straight to the hospital around midnight. We know he was waiting to see his mom once more. He passed away with loved ones by his side at 5:30 AM, Monday January 13th, 2025.

This Go Fund Me will directly go towards supporting Dave’s loved ones with everything from arranging after-life services, bills, the extraordinary cost of moving his treasures, belongings and vehicle back to the lower 48, the last minute flights to Anchorage and organizing a Celebration of Mr. Dave/Kuch’s Life. Anything you are able to give, however small, would be greatly appreciated.

The Celebration of Life will be held this summer so everyone will have more time to plan and join us in remembering him and the countless lives he has touched.

Dave was deeply and truly loved and will be painfully missed every moment of every day. I know he made my mom the happiest she’d ever been. The love they had for each other was what everyone searches for in life, and very few find. I don’t have the words to describe how immense this loss is for everyone who has been lucky enough to know him. But I know his memory lives on in every person he met, every kid he taught, and every person who loved him.