From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is my unsung hero.

Greetings, Hidden Brain.

My name is...

Hi, Shankar. I would like to talk about my heroes.

My unsung hero is the man in the Panama hat on the flight to Boston.

As the plane near touchdown, my daughter...

I'd like to really communicate to him.

How he has the biggest heart of anyone I know.

Today's story comes from Ali Ward.

In 2013, Ali's life felt like it was collapsing.

In quick succession, her relationship with her partner fell apart, her new job wasn't working out, and her dad was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

Meanwhile, my dad's brother had the same kind of cancer and died. And there was a lot going on.

I remember days when I would think I only cried four times today.

That was a good day for me.

It was just really tough.

It was a lot of things that I just couldn't help.

When she needed a distraction, Allie liked to go on Facebook and post pictures of her

unconventional obsession, bugs, worms, spiders, brightly colored beetles. Her close friends

found it enduring, but in Los Angeles, where she lived, not everyone got it.

There's, you know, a little bit of artifice in L.A. and you don't find a lot of people that get

excited about a spider web. One day, she got a Facebook message from a friend of a friend,

...