Justin Simmons delivers Christmas miracle for Denver woman
Chance encounter with Broncos Simmons, Kareem Jackson and P.J. Locke turned family’s holiday around
The Colorado Dream was strapped to a cinder block when Fate launched it from Longs Peak, cupping an ear as the screams trailed into the abyss. Taylor Swift couldn’t write a song as sad as Samantha Ramirez’s 2023. Or sing it half as well.
Ramirez, 38, and her main squeeze, David Dunn, were working at the Waffle House in Cocoa Beach, Fla., when life’s compass pointed them north last September. “Let’s get the heck out of the South, move to the mountains, buy a food truck, see the snow, start over.”
“Sometimes, to get rid of bad juju,” Ramirez explained, “you’ve gotta make a move.”
Only the juju followed, ants chasing a picnic lunch. At the start of the year, her biological father died of cancer. Then her mother contracted pancreatic cancer. A few months after that, the engine in her Subaru Legacy conked out, forcing her and David to Uber to work.
“For $600 a month,” Ramirez sighed.
“When you’re on the path to do things, some rocks get thrown in your path. So I kept on pushing. I was really stressed. I was talking to my hair lady, (telling her) I was really stressed out. It was one thing after another.”
Christmas loomed. Samantha’s got five kids. David’s got two of his own. Santa’s bandwidth was about to get seriously squeezed.
“Dear Lord,” Ramirez posted on Facebook in midnovember, “PLEASE send me an extremely needed blessing!!!”
She got one. When Justin Simmons walked through the front door.
The singing server
The legend of the singing server at the Waffle House in Parker spread through the Broncos locker room, as legends do, by word of mouth.
To hear Samantha tell it, D.J. Jones got the ball rolling. The two bonded over the Bronx, where Ramirez was born and where her accent never left. Alex Singleton popped in with his mom after a game to chill.
“She is so cute,” Samantha said. “I don’t fan-girl out so much. (David was) like, ‘Hey, he’s a (Broncos) player.’ I was talking (expletive) about Russell Wilson at the time, and I literally didn’t even know he was in there.”
Ramirez is a New Yorker at heart with New York pipes and a New York filter — that is, to say, none whatsoever. She’s also blessed with a beautiful singing voice, all the better to entertain the occasional patron and constant co-workers during her graveyard shift.
Over time, more Broncos trickled in. A party bus with a handful pulled up at the end of an off-day Tuesday in late November, when a group that included secondary running mates Simmons, Kareem Jackson and P.J. Locke, who’d been out celebrating Simmons’ 30th birthday, rolled into the Parker Waffle House for a nightcap.
“You look really familiar,” David said to the Broncos star.
“I get, ‘Are you Michael Porter Jr.?’ all the time,” Simmons cracked.
David Googled. Samantha sang. Pictures were posted. Eventually, the Broncos called it a night.
“She did amazing,” Jackson said of Ramirez. “So it was only right to take care of her.”
Kareem picked up the check and added a tip. Only Simmons decided to circle back to the cash register. To Samantha and David’s astonishment and delight, the birthday boy had left another tip — for $1,000 — as a gift.
“It meant a lot,” Ramirez said. “It really did. If it wasn’t for them … It made my Christmas was what it was.
“None of that was for me. All of it was for my kids. They were able to make Christmas happen for them. (Simmons) made Christmas happen for them.”
The whole thing probably would’ve stayed quiet, which was Simmons’ preference, if it weren’t for Waffle House corporate and Samantha’s chutzpah.
Long story short, Ramirez and Dunn were, understandably, hoping to use that money as a buffer for the holidays. Only she says corporate mandated a “hold” on the “gift” for at least a month or two. Tires got kicked, calls were made, and the company amended its policy in order to expedite tip money back to staffers quickly, given the urgency of the season.
Samantha won her case, but with a caveat — the gift was reported and taxed as earnings, effectively turning it into a bonus. She wound up with $756.54 of Simmons’ original offering.
“I’m happy for her and her family, but (the credit), that’s not why I did it,” Simmons told me late last week as the Broncos prepared for a Christmas Eve tussle with the Patriots at Empower Field.
“But I am happy that made her Christmas, and her family’s Christmas. And I hope that’s something where they’ll be able to pay it forward and we’ll just be able to make this whole (gift) just a positive thing.”
Just believe
Over the last four weeks, the ants have scattered. Samantha’s mom is on the mend. A CAT scan a few days back told the doctors she’s cancer-free.
“My mother always tells me — and you know mom’s always right, she always says, ‘Don’t worry about money. Don’t worry about how you’re going to pay the bill,’” Ramirez reflected. “‘If you just believe, some good will find a way, something good is going to happen.’ “She was right.”
As John Lennon once said, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. The gifts are paid for. Lego sets. Minecraft toys. “Heelys,” those sneakers with wheels in the heels. Boots. Scrapbooking materials. A daughter lost her best friend recently, so Samantha got her a customized ring with the friend’s name on it.
“Everybody got what they wanted,” Ramirez said. “But as you can imagine, that $756 went real fast.”
And far. Samantha bought candy canes for the store. She nabbed gifts for her Secret Santa program at work. And extra gifts for those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, so that no one came away empty-handed.
Paying it forward. Always.
“If Scrooge could get over people he doesn’t like,” Ramirez said, “I could do it, too. I said to a customer the other day, ‘It’s sad that it takes this time of year for people to be kind and be giving.’”
For all the times her heart broke, the spirit never did.
“(The Broncos) made it happen,” she said. “It wasn’t me. They blessed me. They made it happen for my kids. That’s all I want for them. It’s not for me. I’ll have to make my own way. As long as my kids aren’t struggling.
“I can’t thank (Simmons) enough … by him doing what he did at the time he did it and the amount he did, I was able to change a (corporate) policy. Not only did he help my family and friends, (he) helped others who don’t have the resources. Something so small had a domino effect on people around the world.”
Tough times don’t last. Tough people do. Samantha and David even decided to pull some money out of their retirement nest eggs to buy a used Ford Windstar this fall.
“We were driving it (last week) and it just started slipping between third (gear) to fourth,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, crap.’” She laughed.
“I ride with God, though. So I’m OK.”
Some angels wear wings, tender and true. Some wear helmets, orange and blue.