A science story, huh?

Is NYU a scientist?

It felt a huge, but I was so...

And I just thought, well...

It was that golden moment.

Because science was on my side. Hey everyone, I'm Ben Lilly, and welcome to the Story Collider,

where we bring you true stories of how science has affected people's lives.

This week's story is from Heather Berlin.

The story was recorded in December 2012 at Union Hall in Brooklyn.

The theme of the event was Science and Religion.

So I was a child born into conflict. My parents got divorced when I was just one year old, and it escalated into a really long custody battle that lasted for about five years. And in the end, it became a precedent case in New York. My father got custody. But in the aftermath of all of this, although my parents were still in my life, my grandmother,

my father's mother, became my primary caregiver. And she was this amazing, amazing woman.

She was wise, grounded, stable. She was actually one of the first female contractors in New York.

She would build and restore homes for people who had low incomes.

And she used to take me on the construction sites, and I'd see her supervising all these

sort of gritty construction workers. And she was just tough and strong and a real role model.

But even in her 60s, she felt the need to warn me that she wasn't always going to be around.

And, you know, she said, look, I'm here now.

Let's enjoy your time together, but I don't want you to cry when I'm gone. And she's to sing this

song to me, you know, enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself. It's later than you think. And I thought, okay.

Wow. So for a kid, I mean, that just, you know, gave me a sense of this fear of death. And so as a

child, I remember I used to sneak into her room at night and just check and make sure that she was

...