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.

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 Lori Gottlie.

So I'm a therapist and many years ago I was seeing a patient who was in her 30s and was diagnosed with cancer and I'll call her Julie and Julie knew that she was dying

and what she wanted was for me to accompany her

on this path toward her death. And it was an incredible experience and we knew how the

therapy was going to end which was when she died and the last few sessions I had actually seen her at her home because she was died. And the last few sessions I had actually seen her

at her home because she was two week to come to the office.

So it was no surprise that she was going to die

and how soon she was going to die. But when I got the email from her husband that she had actually died,

it sat there in my box and I saved it for the end of the day

when I was done seeing patients because I knew that if I opened it I would I would probably lose it and so at the end of the day I opened the email and I know that I'm going to start crying.

So I walked down the hall to the bathroom on our floor.

And we were on a floor with many, many therapists,

some of whom I didn't know.

And as I'm crying in the bathroom,

a person walks in who's dressed professionally,

who I assume is another therapist on the floor and she says are you

okay and I said yes my patient that I was incredibly close with died and even though I knew she was going to die,

...