SCOTT DETROW, 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 Dan Roche. He was born with a cataract that left him mostly blind in his right eye. Growing up, Roche was self-conscious about it and often avoided making eye contact. When he was 15, he played on a baseball team. He was a solid player in the field, but when he was at bat, he kept missing the ball.
DAN ROCHE: About halfway through the season, we were having batting practice, and the coach watched me take 15 or 20 cuts. I missed a lot of them, and then he held up his hand to stop the pitcher, and he walked over to me. And he said, you're closing your right eye when you swing. I kind of shrugged at him, and I told him I couldn't see out of that eye anyway. But he waited a couple seconds, and then he said, try hitting from the other side. So I walked into the batter's box for the lefties, and my teammates took it as a joke. They all scooched in closer in the infield. But I surprised them, and I surprised myself by hitting the first pitch, and then probably the next dozen too. So he moved me back over to the right side, and he stood behind me. And he put his fingertips on my shoulders, and he turned them so they were almost facing the pitcher. And then he adjusted my hips in the same way. And then with his foot, he inched my left foot further and further across the dirt of the batter's box, all the way to the edge. And he said, you'll pull it more this way, but you'll see the ball better. And by the season's end, it wasn't actually humiliating.
ROCHE: I think it was one of the few times throughout those years when I felt seen in a way that was honest and nonjudgmental. Even with other teenagers, if they saw the reality of that bad eye, it was - often it would lead to either teasing or confusion on their part, which I felt very self-conscious about.
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ROCHE: You know, even as an adult, there have been many times when I've struggled to sort of let myself be seen and to make eye contact.
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ROCHE: And so that coach's kindness just comes back to me fairly regularly. And I can still sort of feel his fingertips on my shoulders, you know, and how sort of comfortable it was to make that observation and to offer that help in the way that he did.
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DETROW: Dan Roche lives in Fayetteville, New York. His right eye was later removed and replaced with a prosthetic. He wrote a book about the experience and the craft of making artificial eyes. It's called "Eyes By Hand: Prosthetics Of Art And Healing." 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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