Ellen Butterfield and her husband Chas Eisner.
Ellen Butterfield
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Ellen Butterfield
Ellen Butterfield and her husband Chas Eisner.
Ellen Butterfield
This story is a part of the My Unsung Hero collection, from the Hidden Mind crew. It options tales of individuals whose kindness left a long-lasting impression on another person.
In October 2001, Ellen Butterfield and her husband, Chas Eisner, had been driving residence to Los Angeles from Tijuana. That they had gone to Mexico to select up chemotherapy medicine for Eisner’s metastasized colon most cancers.
Butterfield had the medicine in a plastic bag in her purse. It was eight little bottles of white powder — which raised alarm bells on the border.
”It appeared rather a lot like anthrax, which individuals had been actually terrified about,” Butterfield mentioned.
So earlier than they might cross again into the US, they had been taken to a big auditorium stuffed with X-ray machines and guards in uniforms.
”And out of the blue, each Chas and I had been actually panicked,” Butterfield recalled. ”I used to be afraid that they might simply confiscate these medicine and never allow us to take them residence. After which Eisner’s one likelihood at perhaps beating the most cancers can be gone.”
Butterfield reluctantly put her purse on the conveyor belt. Simply as she had feared, when the official noticed the plastic bag stuffed with bottles, he instructed them to take the bag throughout the auditorium, to a different border official seated at a desk.
”He was monumental, actually scary-looking,” Butterfield remembered. ”And I gave him the bag, and he took two of the little bottles out of the bag.”
He then reached again into the bag and took out the physician’s prescription order. He studied it for what felt to her like an hour, although it was most likely just some seconds.
”Then this enormous man reached out for Chas’ hand, and he smiled. And he mentioned, ’You already know, my dad had most cancers. And he needed to take all them chemotherapy medicine, too.'”
”After which he appeared very intently at Chas, and he mentioned, ’And he is nonetheless alive.'”
After that, the border official turned to the folks in line behind them, and so they had been free to go. Butterfield and her husband had been in shock. As quickly as they received exterior, they cried and hugged one another in aid.
”That man had appeared so scary. However he was so mild and he was so variety,” Butterfield mentioned. ”And it was like a lesson for us that, you recognize, you by no means know who an individual actually is by simply how he seems to be.”
Butterfield now lives in Studio Metropolis, California. Eisner lived one other 10 months, till August 2002.
My Unsung Hero can also be a podcast — new episodes are launched each Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Mind crew, report a voice memo in your cellphone and ship it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.