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 Everett Miller. When Everett was about 15, he left his parents' house

to get away from a home that was filled with fighting and conflict. He lived with friends and

relatives sleeping on couches. The only real stability in his life was his grandmother.

She would come pick me up wherever I was living on three-day weekends or breaks from school,

and I would go to her little apartment with her and hang out with her. And she was the person that I

admired the most. Well, during that difficult time, one of the things that I had unfortunately

started doing is that I had started shoplifting. Well, on that day, in the mall, my granny sitting

on the bench, me off looking at at stores I went into a store that had

banned t-shirts if you grew up in the 80s and 90s you'll remember this but it was a

Spencer's gifts well I found a band t-shirt that I wanted for the band rage against the machine

and I decided that I was going to steal it and so I crouched down behind a clothing rack and I decided that I was going to steal it. And so I crouched down behind a clothing

rack and I started to roll up that t-shirt and I was getting ready to stuff it in my pants.

And as I was doing that, a teenage girl, probably just a couple years older than me,

crouched down beside me and whispered to me,

don't do it, man. It's not worth it. The tone of her voice wasn't angry, it wasn't judgmental,

it was caring, and then she looked at me, and she kept her eyes on me until I unrolled the t-shirt. And then I stood up and I paid for it and went and found my granny on the bench she was sitting on and told her I was ready to leave.

...