JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at the Hidden Brain podcast. "My Unsung Hero" tells the stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else. Today's story comes from Everett Miller. When Everett was about 15, he was living with friends and relatives, sleeping on couches. The only real stability in his life was his grandmother.
EVERETT MILLER: She would come pick me up wherever I was living on three-day weekends or breaks from school, and I would go to her little apartment with her and hang out with her. And she was the person that I admired the most. Well, during that difficult time, one of the things that I had unfortunately started doing is that I had started shoplifting. Well, on that day in the mall, my granny sitting on the bench, me off looking at stores, I went into a store that had band T-shirts. If you grew up in the '80s and '90s, you'll remember this, but it was a Spencer's Gifts (ph).
Well, I found a band T-shirt that I wanted for the band Rage Against the Machine, and I decided that I was going to steal it. And so I crouched down behind a clothing rack and I started to roll up that T-shirt and I was getting ready to stuff it in my pants. And as I was doing that, a teenage girl, probably just a couple years older than me, crouched down beside me and whispered to me, don't do it, man. It's not worth it. The tone of her voice wasn't angry, it wasn't judgmental. I was caring. And then she looked at me and she kept her eyes on me until I unrolled the T-shirt. And then I stood up and I paid for it and went and found my granny on the bench she was sitting on. I told her I was ready to leave.
I don't know who that teenage girl was. I don't know why she cared so much. All I know is that, whoever she was, the fact that she whispered that to me secretly kept me from making a terrible mistake. And had I stolen that shirt, I almost certainly would have gotten caught, and the police would have gone and found my granny, and I would have embarrassed her and disappointed her. And she was the only person who I respected that much and loved that much at that time in my life, and I would have had to live with what I had done to her for the rest of my life.
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MILLER: And so whoever that teenage girl was, I've thought of her every day, and I'm so thankful to her. And I just want to say thank you - thank you to my unsung hero.
SUMMERS: Everett Miller lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma. His grandmother's name was Colleen Miller. You can find more stories of unsung heroes and learn how to submit your own at hiddenbrain.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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