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.

My unsung hero is my therapist.

I said, it's okay.

I still love you.

You're still my best friend.

So if she hears this, I just want to say thank you.

Millions of people in the United States are traveling for the Memorial Day holiday.

So in honor of our travel woes, we are bringing you two

episodes this week that take place in airports. Today's story comes from Roxanne

Olson. In 1999, when she was 23, she left her home in Eureka, California to pursue her dream job,

touring around the country with a huge reggae festival.

One morning, she was on the tour bus when her manager got a call.

And I remember him telling me that my dad had died of a heart attack just suddenly just fell over dead and he was only

59 and it wasn't it definitely wasn't part of the plan. I was young enough to not even understand that death was part of my world.

And so it was a crazy shock and all my family was trying to get home so that we could all be together.

Luckily, the helpers on the tour, somebody put together a plane ticket, but when I arrived in O'Hare Airport in Chicago, somebody ran through security with a bag,

and they had to shut down the whole section of the airport and evacuate us.

It turned out it was over 6,000 people evacuated from the O'Hare Airport that day.

And we're all standing out there on the street and I just remember helicopters overhead

and just people everywhere and we stood out there for hours.

I mean it was just a long time and I, you know,

...