From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is my unsung hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

I do not know the full name of my unsung hero.

She came straight up to me. She looked me in the eyes and she smiled.

So whoever you are, thank you so much.

Today's story comes from Eileen Freiburg Dale.

In 2017, Eileen's husband, Barney, had a serious bicycle accident.

It caused a traumatic brain injury.

Eileen says that when Barney finally came home,

after spending months in rehab facilities and the ICU,

he wasn't the same.

His mood was agitated and angry,

and he could barely walk.

Things were very stressful.

One day I realized that I could not let the leaves pile up any further in our side and backyard.

Barney had always been the one to take care of that, and he could no longer do that.

So I went outside just trying to pick up the leaves.

As I did that, madly trying to get them into bins and in bags, I was crying.

I was stressed.

I didn't know how I was going to do it all.

All of a sudden, there was a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around around and there was Jonathan Lillianfeld.

Now Jonathan is somebody we'd known for years and he was a friend of Barney's.

...