Decades later, Karen de Boer still remembers a kind gesture from her college hallmate

This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, from the Hidden Brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.

In 1990, when Karen de Boer was a freshman in college, she was accepted into her school’s prestigious choir program. That year, they would be traveling to China and Japan for an international tour, and de Boer was determined to make the most of it.

One of the choir’s first performances was at a church about an hour away from campus. But the morning of the service, she woke up late and realized she had missed the bus.

“I felt the bottom of my stomach just drop out,” de Boer remembered.

“I was like, ‘This is the end of everything.’ Because what if they say, ‘Well, you’re not mature enough to be in this group, try again next year.’ Then the international tour was out and I was just afraid that my mistake had ruined it.”

De Boer wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t have a car and she didn’t know anyone nearby who did.

“So, I just kind of wandered out into the hallway … kind of whimpering. And that’s probably why my [neighbor] across the hall came out to see what was up.”

Her name was Pam and in the two months they had known each other, their relationship had been rocky.

“A lot of that was on me,” de Boer said. “Because I had just gotten to college. I had freshman friends. And we were out on our own for the first time and we were having fun.”

De Boer and her roommates would roam up and down the halls, playing practical jokes on each other and screaming with laughter.

“We made a lot of noise and we didn’t particularly think about how that affected others on the same floor,” de Boer said.

Pam would ask them to be quiet, because she was trying to sleep or needed to study. De Boer and her friends would stop for a while, but eventually they got back to their usual fun.

So, when de Boer needed help that morning, she was slightly abashed to see that the first person who came to check on her was Pam. De Boer told Pam the whole story — how she had overslept and missed the bus to her performance, an hour away. Decades later, de Boer is still humbled by Pam’s response.

“She told me, ‘Well, I have a car here at college and I know where that church is. So, I could drive you there,'” de Boer recalled. “Which to me was shocking. She had no reason to be kind to me when I had not been kind to her. But she extended that to me.”

They hurried out to Pam’s car and Pam got de Boer to the performance just in time, right before the choir entered the sanctuary.

Reflecting back on that day, as she has done so many times over the years, de Boer thinks of her hallmate’s gesture as more than just an hourlong car ride.

“It was a gift of forgiveness, really — forgiving me for not being nice to her,” de Boer said.

If de Boer could talk to Pam today, she knows exactly what she would say: “The first thing I would say is, ‘I’m sorry. I am sorry for ignoring your requests all those years ago,'” de Boer said.

“[And] I want to say thank you, because that decision that you made when perhaps I didn’t deserve that sort of kindness and you decided to extend it anyway — that has had ripple effects through the next 30 years of my life.”

 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.