From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam. This is My Unsong Hero, stories where one person reached

out to help another in a time of need. I would like to thank my

unsung hero. I do not know her. He just pulled up a chair and we talked I'd say for

about... I can't even express to you how much you've changed my life.

Today's story comes from Washington Post columnist Carolyn Hacks. When she was 34, she was living on her own and having

a hard time. It was when my mom was sick. My mom died of ALS and anybody who knows anything about that knows it's

awful it's just awful watching somebody with her while their mind stays

perfectly clear and so I was just struggling, but I was still working. I

actually through the whole thing I didn't miss even a week of work, but I was I

think I probably lost about 20 pounds and was just, I must have looked

haunted or something, but a colleague who wasn't normally in my group of friends, who I didn't work

with directly,

just started checking in on me, just, you know, stopping by to say hi.

And then, you know, every once in a while just shooting me an email

and sometimes it was chatty stuff and sometimes it was hey how you doing and it was purely

overtures of friendship there was no angling for professional advantage there was was no romantic interest, it was just a remarkable

act of grace.

It was just this person who had an idea of what your normal was and was able to detect that things weren't normal and that maybe the world needed to be a little bit kinder to you in that moment.

Actually, I'm choking up talking about it because it is so, it is such a profound thing that we can do for each

other. I probably didn't put together completely that this person was there to look out for me until after I got better, after I got stronger.

And then this person just sort of retreated back into the original place in my life and remains there.

And that was the signal that I got that this was sort of the world taking care of itself.

...