A few months passed, and one day the woman realized that she no longer saw the young man at work. Curious and somewhat uneasy, she asked one of the young cleaners who had recently joined the same company.
“I’m sorry,” he said politely, “but I just started working here not long ago, and I don’t know him.”
Unsatisfied and unable to shake her concern, she asked about him the next time she visited her grandmother at the care facility. A staff member there quietly answered:
“He loved mountain climbing, you know. But a few months ago, he had a tragic accident while climbing and passed away. Both our staff and the residents mourned him deeply. He was such a bright, gentle, and compassionate young man… everyone here loved him.”
The woman was stunned. It felt as if her breath had been taken away.
From that moment on, she began to change. Her arrogance slowly faded, replaced with gentleness, humility, and a quiet strength she had never shown before.
Then, one day, just before turning forty, she received an informal notice that she would be appointed head of the company’s New York branch.
But she declined.
Instead, she resigned.
She rewrote her résumé, claiming only a junior high school education, and applied for a position at a different care facility from the one her grandmother lived in. There, she worked not only caring for the residents, but also cleaning the hallways and restrooms—just as he once had.
And though she never told anyone, each time she wrung out a mop or whispered a gentle greeting to an elderly resident, she felt as if he were silently similing nearby.
