Judge Gorsuch also proved to be an incredibly supportive mentor. When our law firm offered free tuition for three of its staffers to attend law school, I was surprised to see my name on the list. I didn’t expect this at all, and knowing that my path led elsewhere, I declined the very generous offer, but was grateful beyond measure. With his encouragement, I went on to complete a Master’s Degree from American University in International Politics instead. Over coffee years later Judge Gorsuch brought up the topic of law school but never hounded me about it. Instead, he listened.

We kept in touch after he left the firm for the Department of Justice and were on hand for each other’s big life events. I attended his Tenth Circuit Investiture in 2006, where I asked him if he would be willing to officiate my wedding someday. Almost a decade later, he kept his promise and performed my April 2015 wedding, the happiest day of my life. And to my great surprise, on January 31, I received a call inviting me to the White House to attend the announcement of his nomination to the Supreme Court.

But it is some of the more ordinary moments since our time at the law firm that really stick with me. From 2010 to 2012, I owned a small pet supply store in Washington, D.C. Judge Gorsuch was in town for a conference, and stopped by to say hello, which happened to coincide with my weekly inventory delivery. There were hundreds of pounds of pet products on the curb to be unloaded and re-stocked. Judge Gorsuch didn’t even pause. He donned a store apron and started hauling 30-pound bags of dog food and boxes of cat litter off the pallets and onto my store shelves. We had a good laugh after I offered to hire him, in case he needed a change of career.