If there's one thing we've learned in the past week as the country mourns the loss of Sen. John McCain, it's this: Everyone who has ever met the senator from Arizona has that quintessential "John McCain story."
And as Sylvia Cheng stood in line early Friday morning outside the U.S. Capitol waiting to pay her respects to the man she called her hero, she remembered hers and was eager to show the photo she and McCain took together.
When Cheng became a United States citizen, she never really paid much attention to who the senators were or who even the president was. That changed when she moved to Arizona.
Cheng said she lived in Tucson and then in Phoenix for a couple of years. In Arizona, Cheng, for the first time, heard all about Sen. John McCain.
"After I moved to Arizona, everybody was like so respectful to him," Cheng said. "I was like, "Oh my God, this senator was great."
Cheng moved back east to Baltimore, where in 2016 she had what could only be described as a memorable, chance meeting with McCain.
She was dropping off a friend at the Baltimore–Washington International Airport.
"My friend was getting ready to go into the security and then all of a sudden he say “Oh! That’s the senator,'” Cheng said.
McCain was far away, but Cheng was still "nervous and shaking."
"I didn’t know what to say," Cheng said. "So I was just like waving and then turned around, 'Oh my God, Oh my God.'"
"All of a sudden he walked over to me and asked me if I want to take a picture with him,” Cheng said.
Again, Cheng had no idea what to say to the senator.
“I was shaking. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know how to take a selfie," she said.
But luckily, McCain was no stranger to snapping a quick selfie.
"Then he say, here let me show you how to do it, so he took my phone and set up the selfie and helped me to take the picture and then he walked away,” Cheng said.
Cheng said McCain was her hero because he stood up for what he believed in.
"He did everything for the people. He put everything, the country and the people before him," she said. "So yes, I was nervous that day."
And although she was at a loss for words that day back in 2016, she knew exactly what she'd say to McCain Friday.
“He did a great job for this country," she said. "And everybody would remember him.”