Max died on June 14, 2011, after smoking a synthetic drug that was legal at the time — sold openly in smoke shops at the Fox Valley Mall. He was 19. He was going through a hard stretch in his life and thought it was safe because it was legal to buy.

It wasn't.

Karen Dobner, Max's mother, could have folded under that weight. She didn't.

In the wake of losing her son, she started asking questions. She connected with the Kane County Sheriff's Department. She found other parents who had lost children to the same substances. She gathered their stories and their data. She told her own story on Chicago television. She took to social media before most people understood what that meant. She traveled to military bases and schools to speak. And she was eventually invited onto Good Morning America to tell the world what synthetic drugs were doing to families exactly like hers.

She built the To the Maximus Foundation — named for Max's childhood love of the movie Gladiator, which had inspired him to wish he could change his name to “Maximus.” The foundation's mission was to educate the public about the dangers of synthetic drugs, push for legislation to ban them, and support law enforcement in shutting down the stores that sold them.

Justin worked alongside his mother throughout — gathering information on shops and sellers, designing the foundation's logo, making shirts, coordinating with local sheriffs. The bulk of the work, and all of the courage it took, belonged to Karen.

The foundation ran from 2011 to 2017. When it dissolved, the remaining funds were donated to another organization with the same mission. The law changed. Fewer families had to learn what the Dobners learned.

Max spent his life quietly helping everyone around him. In the end, through the people who loved him, he helped people he never got to meet.