In 2022, Kristi Reeves received an email with the subject line, "Finalization of Divorce." It marked the official end of her decades-long marriage. Even though she knew it was coming, the news hit her hard.
So Reeves grabbed her shoes and her dog and headed for the mountains, where she often went to connect to something greater than herself. She chose a hike she hadn't done in years, the Rock Canyon Trail in Provo, Utah. It allowed her to see the entire city from the peak.
On her way up the trail, she ran into a couple coming down from the summit. She asked them if she was almost to the top, and the man told her she was — it was just around the corner.
"But as he was speaking, I looked at his wife and I said to her, 'Your face does not match his message,'" Reeves said.
"And she looked at me and said, 'It's not just around the corner. It's a hard hike.' And then she said, 'Good for you for doing it alone.'"
Standing there on the trail, Reeves began to cry.
"Those words undid me," Reeves said. "And I said to her, 'I just found out that [the end of] my marriage of 33 years was finalized today, and I needed a bigger perspective.'"
Then the woman said something that Reeves still carries with her.
"She said, 'Do you need a hug?' And then I said something that I did not expect, which was, 'Yes.'"
The woman came over to her and hugged her for a long time. The husband stood nearby, watching with tears in his eyes.
"I think she had to pull me off of her," Reeves said. "But she looked me in the eyes and she said, 'You keep going. You get up that mountain. You can do this.'"
When they parted, Reeves felt changed.
"I felt stronger," she said. "I felt more capable. I felt like I could do it."
Reeves has stayed in touch with the couple, Elysa and Topher Calder. She says she tries to do that same hike each year on the same date, as a reminder of how far she has come.
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
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