From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankarvedantam. This is my unsung hero, stories where one person reached

out to help another in a time of need.

I don't know the name of my unsung hero.

And here she was trying to encourage me that it was going to be all right.

Thank you. You will forever be my own son, hero.

Today's story comes from Julie Cadwalader Staub.

In 2003, Julie's husband Warren died of cancer at just 49. Not long after, she decided to go visit a friend in Boston.

I'd driven to Boston many times for my husband's chemo

treatment at Dana Harbor so I had plenty of false confidence about being able to

make the trip. Mind you, this was in the days before GPS and cell phones were ubiquitous,

and I had neither. Also, keep in mind, which I did not, that my husband had always been with me on these previous

trips and unlike me had an impeccable sense of direction, but needless to say he was not with me on this trip.

I arrived there fine, my friend had given me good directions,

and I figured I would just do the reverse in order to get back home.

I became seriously lost. I had absolutely no idea where I was. By now I was fighting panic. I finally found a neighborhood

gas station. I pulled up to the pump and asked the attendant, how do I get back onto 93 or the

Everett Parkway or anything that would head me back north to Vermont.

He looked at me blankly and said just a few words in Spanish

that meant I don't speak English.

I was stuck, no map, I was panicking, I couldn't think straight, I couldn't even think at all.

Then the unsung hero was the woman at the next pump.

She turned to me and said, listen,

...