A chance meeting with a stranger on an airplane has a huge impact on Melanie Knight's life.

Melanie Knight is CEO and Co-Founder of Ocean to Eye Level Consulting which supports coastal communities around the world open public marine education centres. Melanie is also the founder and past Executive Director of the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium, a non-profit education centre in Newfoundland. Melanie had the opportunity to share her story of ‘bringing the ocean to eye level on the TEDx stage in Vancouver, November 2014. Melanie graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a BSc. in Biology and a minor in Business. For the past 10 years, Melanie has been working with the largest and the smallest aquariums in Canada fostering curiosity for the underwater world. Melanie worked at the Vancouver Aquarium as a marine educator and manager of volunteers. Melanie has since been recognized for her work environmental work with the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium becoming a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, receiving the Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Award, TechGirls Portraits of Strength and the Canadian Network of Environmental Educators Award in 2014. She lives in Vancouver with her husband and K9.

This story originally aired on November 29, 2019 in an episode titled “Thankful: Stories about gratitude”.

Story Transcript

I’m 16 and I’m sitting on a plane going from Cancun back home to Toronto. My mother and my twin sister and I just got bumped up to first class for the very first time and we are super pumped. First class!

So my mother and my twin sister sit together and so instead, I have to sit next to a kind, gentle, old gentleman sitting there reading The New York Times.

We’re quiet at first and when the hot towel comes I start giggling with embarrassment and confusion, like what do I do with this? And he gives me this gentle little nudge of like, “Just wipe your hands with it.”

I’m like, “Thanks.” And that breaks the ice. We talk the entire flight.

He tells me about how he's a Wall Street investment banker and he lives in Connecticut. And I tell him about how I’m a high school student and I live in Elmira, like Mennonite town in Ontario. He tells me about his time in the war. He tells me about his grandchildren. He tells me about how he went to Yale. He tells me about how he loves marching bands, strangely, and he tells me about his life. I tell him about mine.

We couldn’t stop talking and we just had this amazing quick connection like you sometimes get with strangers. So at the end of the flight I asked if I could get his email because I wanted to keep chatting. He's cool.

So he says, “I don't have email. I’m an old-school gent. But, here, let me give you my phone number and address.” And he writes it down on the back of the American Airlines napkin.

His name is Tom Fitzgerald and he writes his name as the T kind of uniquely. Instead of a T like you normally write the ‘t’ he added like a little hat on top, like a little triangle top and then the bottom line.

So we become pen pals. He and I write each other regularly and sometimes we call. One time, he actually sent me a package and in it was a VHS tape of a marching band concert. And one time he calls me and, out of the blue, he offers to generously, yet modestly, contribute to my post-secondary education. I am amazed and confused.

“Tom, thank you so much for this generous offer but we’re okay. I have a big family but we’re fine. I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression that that’s why we were chatting.”

“No, Melanie. That’s not it. I really believe in you and I also really enjoyed my university experience and I really want to make sure you get yours.”

So I talk with my parents about it. I’m like, “Should we accept this money?” Like oh, my goodness. And generously and graciously we accept his offer, and his secretary sends us a check.

As soon as I get my acceptance letter to Memorial University of Newfoundland, I sent him a copy of it I and sent him a big fat thank you. Then I pack everything up and I move to Newfoundland. At least I think I packed everything up. I did not pack the American Airlines napkin.

So I call my mom and I ask her if she might have it. Well, in the meantime she also had been packing up. She had moved everything up and moved as far west as she possibly could to the ocean to the west coast of Vancouver Island. She also didn’t keep anything that was nonessential so she did not have any of the letters and she, too, didn’t have the napkin.

Being a moronic teenager, I didn’t write it down anywhere else because it was a keepsake. I was supposed to keep the napkin. It stresses me out just thinking about it again.

So fine. I Google him. He must be online somewhere. This man doesn’t have email but he must be online somewhere. And there are hundreds and hundreds of Tom Fitzgeralds in the Connecticut area and none of them that I recognize.

So in my first year Bio class I think about him and like, ah, how could I have been so stupid? In my year two Genetics Lab, I think about him. Ah, pit in my stomach. How could I have been so stupid? In my year three Ichthyology class, he comes to mind again and I just curse at myself.

Every once in a while throughout my university career I try again. I Google him again. I think of him constantly and I tell people the story. I wonder how I’m ever going to get a hold of him again. In the meantime, what I should tell you is that in exchange for the contribution he gave me, what he did ask was for an invitation to my graduation. And my graduation is slowly approaching.

I go one last time. I got to see if I could find this guy. I go online, I search and search, and short of hiring a private investigator, I can’t find him.

My graduation comes and, regrettably, it goes without Tom Fitzgerald there. And so does life, life continues.

I move from Newfoundland back to BC, I get a job at the Vancouver Aquarium, I get married and I decide to move back to Newfoundland so that I can start the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium, Canada’s second catch-and-release aquarium.

The aquarium is doing awesome and second year comes by and I ended up giving up my position as executive director to somebody local and I move back to Vancouver with my husband and I continue working and doing whatever.

Four years go by and the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium is celebrating its five-year anniversary and my mother and I are going to be going back to visit. I think, “You know what? This is the time.”

I call my mom and I’m like, “Mom, I think this is it. This is my chance. I might have even missed it. He might not even still be alive. I have to find Tom Fitzgerald and invite him to the anniversary because at least that’s something.”

My mother knows how deeply impacted I've been by not being able to fulfill this commitment to him so she says, “Mel, do it.”

So instead of Googling Tom, I’m now Googling ‘private investigator Connecticut’. There are three in Connecticut. All three of them claim that they can find your cheating spouse but only one of them says that they can find a long-lost friend or loved one.

So I call John and I explain my incredibly strange request and I tell him the very little amount of information that I know about Tom. I tell him he went to Yale, I tell him that he works on Wall Street, that he lives in Connecticut, he has grandchildren. He's older, I don't know. Super old, I don't know. By now 16 years had passed and I tell him that he likes marching bands. Does that help? I don't know.

He asked me if I have a sample of his handwriting and I say, “No, I don't, but I do remember that he kind of wrote his Ts a little weird. He adds a little hat to the top.”

He goes, “Send me a picture of that and I'll see what I can do.”

Two weeks later I get a call. “Hello?”

“Melanie, it’s John. I found your Tom.”

“Oh, my goodness. How did you find him?”

“Well, I had to do some digging. I called a couple of people who weren’t your Tom and now their wives are mad at them, because they're not sure why some man is asking if they ever gave money to a young girl a couple of years ago. But I found your Tom and we’re sure of it. We sent your handwriting sample to his secretary and she absolutely said this must be you.

“He's going to call you in 10 minutes. Is that cool?”

“Oh, my God, yes. Oh, my God, okay.” So he's calling.

So I hang up and I’m like, “Okay. Oh, my goodness. Is he mad at me? I can’t believe I was never able to give him the invitation that he wanted. Oh, my goodness. Is he mad at me? Is he wigged out that I hired a private investigator to find him? Like what a strange situation. He must be so confused.”

Okay. 10 minutes. 10 minutes on the dot Tom Fitzgerald shows up on my phone. I pick it up and I’m like, “Hi, Tom, it Melanie Knight.”

He's like, “I know. Hello, Melanie. Nice to speak with you again.”

Oh, my goodness. I immediately apologized over and over again. I explain the whole story. I explain that I lost him and that’s why I had to hire this weird John guy to find him.

And he says, “Mel, you know what? I don't even remember giving you that money. I don't remember ever asking you to give me the invitation to your graduation in the first place.” He's like, “No big deal.”

“It was a big deal, Tom. It was. You made a big impact on my life and I have been thinking about you for years. Please know that that was really important to me and I thank you so much for it. And the fact that I can’t give you the invitation to my graduation anymore, I would really love it if you could potentially come to the five-year anniversary of this organization that I started because of my degree, because of how you supported me in getting that degree.”

He said, “Well, let me check my calendar. Let me check. In June, let me see.” And he looks at his calendar for a second he's like, “To hell with it. I'll be there.”

So on June 17, 2017 Tom Fitzgerald is standing in the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium with a party hat on and a sea star in his hand at 85 years old. He looks to his left and there is a five-year-old girl who is also experiencing a sea star for the very first time in her life and they totally smile at each other and have this cute bonding moment.

That is the Return on Investment I wanted to show him. He finally got to see it.

While he was there, he also had a couple of other firsts. We got to show him his first iceberg, he got to see his first whale, he ate lobster, he met a fisherman with a peg leg. It was a great trip.

Tom and I now talk regularly and we have plans to go see him in New York in the spring. I can tell you that, now, I have Tom's full name, number and address written down in many different places.