…paid for my college education.”
My son, Jason, looked at me like he’d never seen me before.
The CEO’s name was Sandra Kim. In 1997, she was a twenty-two-year-old intern working late at an office building downtown. I cleaned that building every night. One evening, she collapsed at her desk. Diabetic shock. Everyone else had gone home. I found her on the floor, called 911 and gave her orange juice from the vending machine while the paramedics were on their way. The doctors said I saved her life.
In the hospital, she told me she was about to drop out of college. She couldn’t afford her last year of tuition. I’d been saving for years for my own son’s education. I gave her four thousand dollars of it.
I asked her not to tell anyone. I never heard from her again. I assumed she’d forgotten.
“I didn’t forget,” Sandra told the room. “I finished college because of that money. I started this company because I finished college. And when I learned last month that your new vice president’s mother was the janitor who saved me, I knew exactly who I wanted beside me tonight.”
The company had just opened a new research campus. Sandra announced that it would be named after me.
The room stood up and applauded. Jason didn’t move. His face was bright red.
Later, he found me by the dessert table. He started to apologize, stopped, and started again. “You gave her money that was supposed to be for me,” he said. “And you never told me.”
“I still had enough left for you,” I said. “I just worked more nights.”
He hugged me, right there, in front of every executive and investor in the room. He hasn’t been embarrassed by me since.
The campus opened in the spring. There’s a small plaque by the front door with my name and a sentence Sandra chose: “She was there when no one else was.”
