My\u00a0son died at\u00a016. His college fund had $80K. My\u00a0coworker\u2019s son needed a\u00a0transplant, so\u00a0I gave all the money. My\u00a0husband left: \u2019You betrayed our child.\u2019 I\u00a0moved and cut ties.
\n6\u00a0years later, I\u00a0got\u00a0cancer. A\u00a0stranger walked into my\u00a0hospice room. I\u00a0froze when he\u00a0looked at\u00a0me\u00a0with tears in\u00a0his eyes and said, \u201cMrs. Patterson? I\u2019m Daniel. Your old coworker Sarah\u2019s son. You saved my\u00a0life when\u00a0I was 14.\u201d
\nHe\u00a0sat down. \u201cAfter my\u00a0transplant, my\u00a0mom tried to\u00a0find you to\u00a0pay you back. Your husband said you\u2019d moved and cut all contact. We\u00a0hired a\u00a0private investigator last year. Took him 8\u00a0months.\u201d
\nHe\u00a0handed me\u00a0an\u00a0envelope. \u201c$80,000. My\u00a0mom\u2019s been setting aside money for years. She died last year but made me\u00a0promise I\u2019d find you.\u201d
\nInside was also a\u00a0photo: Daniel in\u00a0a\u00a0white coat. \u201cI\u2019m in\u00a0my\u00a0second year of\u00a0med school. Specializing in\u00a0cardiology. I\u2019m going to\u00a0save kids like\u00a0me, because someone believed\u00a0I deserved a\u00a0chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My\u00a0son died at\u00a016. His college fund had $80K. My\u00a0coworker\u2019s son needed a\u00a0transplant, so\u00a0I gave all the money. My\u00a0husband left: \u2019You betrayed our child.\u2019 I\u00a0moved and cut ties. 6\u00a0years later, I\u00a0got\u00a0cancer. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9763,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions\/9763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}