From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedanta. 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 something.

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 Joy Leiden. I have had a slowly disabling illness for many years and in the past year it's intensified to the point that I've made a list of things that I want to do

while I'm still able to do them. And on that list is recording a reading of one of my books of poetry called the Book of Anna.

It's not just poetry, it's kind of like a novel combining diary

and poetry in the voice of a fictional Holocaust survivor.

So I decided that I wanted to do a recording of it while I still had the energy to undertake this.

And it was almost too much for me to find somebody

who would be able to do the recording.

But I found a woman who was very enthusiastic. She said, can come out to my studio and

we'll do a recording of this and I explained about being ill and she said okay I will drive to you and I

explained about being on disability and she said okay I won't charge you for the

transportation time which was about five hours round trip.

I'll just come out and we'll just do the recording and I explained that I would need to be lying down in bed while I did this and she said that's okay.

I will sit on the bed beside you and hold the microphone over you so that you don't have to sit up. And that's what she did. She drove out

one summer day and for a total of about six hours, she sat on my bed leaning over, despite the fact that she had

a bad back, holding the microphone so that I could very slowly make this recording.

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