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.

My story is about a group of unsung heroes.

He just pulled up a chair and we talked, I'd say for about 90 minutes or so.

I don't know if she really understands or appreciates the full impact that she's had in my life

and still continues to have.

Today's story comes from Emma Carlson Byrne.

In 2015, Emma had just had her third child.

She loved being a mom, but often felt overwhelmed and isolated. One day, when her baby was

about three months old, she decided that her whole family, her husband, her two young boys,

and her new baby should get out of the house and go to a restaurant. We drive down, we park,

and by the time, like, we find a parking place and get out of the car and load everybody, including the diaper bag and the little kids and, like, some books for them to read, the baby was ready to nurse again, and I was already feeling pretty shaky.

So we kind of like, we all pile into the restaurant. We're very messy. We're very

loud. Now the baby is really, really, you know, starting to cry. So I'm trying to nurse him

under the blanket. And he's thrashing around. I'm feeling pretty sweaty. I'm feeling a little

teary-eyed because this, although we're doing it, this is really hard.

And in the midst of all of this, this woman came up and she took a minute and stood there

and looked at us. And I was sort of preparing that she was going to say how cute the baby was.

And then she said said what a beautiful

family then when i remember is the very next thing she did was she looked at the boys who were sitting

on my side of the table he's two little boys six and three and she said it's not easy to sit at a table for a long time.

And I could not believe my ears.

...