Hey there, Shankar here. Today, we are bringing you something special, a story from a podcast

with a deep kinship to this show. It's an episode of StoryCorps, the weekly series that

features personal stories drawn from the thousands of conversations recorded by the StoryCorps team

each year. You may have heard StoryCorps pieces on NPR's Morning Edition or on the StoryCorps podcast,

which features longer versions of the conversations they present on the radio.

The episode we're sharing today weaves together three stories of perseverance.

Here's host, Jasmine Morris.

One of the unique things about a StoryCorps interview is that it's a conversation between two people who mean something to each other.

If there's anything you ever wanted to ask, I can ask you now?

Yeah. Okay.

Those two people sit down face to face, ask each other questions, and a lot of times say things to each other

they've never said before.

Well, I just wasn't ready for that.

I'm sure.

Thank you for telling me.

Did you ever give up hope?

Never.

I really owe you guys for that.

You saved my life, you know.

I'm Jasmine Morris, and it's the StoryCorps podcast from NPR, where we bring you into our archive, the largest collection of human voices ever gathered. And in this episode, stories about people who never gave up, on a family member, a relationship, or the hope of finding someone they thought might be lost forever.

Our first story takes us back to the 90s in Dallas, Texas. That's where Hannah Mitchell grew up, and her home life was difficult. So when Hannah was 11, she spent a lot of time at the house across the street, playing with

Stephen Patty Erickson's daughter.

...