64-year-old 'guardian angel' drives strangers with disabilities for free: 'Bad weather friend'

When the 64-year-old Lyn Story, from Fort Worth, Texas, retired, she immediately signed up on NextDoor, a hyperlocal social networking service, to find something that would allow her to share her resourcefulness with the world. David Begnaud, lead national correspondent for CBS Mornings shared her story.

On NextDoor, Lyn came across a 46-year-old woman named Apryl Goodwin. Apryl was diagnosed with uterine cancer and had no transportation for going to her therapy sessions. That’s when Lyn jumped in to help. "Someone spoke up and said, 'I'll take you to your appointments,' and I kind of ignored it cause it's a stranger. What do you do? So she messaged me again and said, 'I'll take you. I mean it. I'm honest. I, you know, I'm sincere,'" said Apryl.

Lyn interacted with her, and after some time, Apryl believed in what she was saying. Lyn drove Apryl to more than 25 radiation appointments, six chemotherapy treatments, and countless doctor visits. "One time her car broke down and she goes and flags down somebody in the middle of traffic to get me to my chemo," Apryl recalled. Apryl had found support while Lyn had discovered a new purpose for her life. 

As time went by, Lyn received an opportunity to become someone else’s helping hand. She noticed a post from a man named Kevin Horrigan, who is legally blind and couldn’t drive to work, forcing him to retire early. Lyn approached him for a new collaborative relationship, offering to drive him to work. "Lyn's like a little angel," Horrigan said. "Lyn drives me to work or she picks me up from work. It helps tremendously, very big help," he added.

Upon helping these two strangers, and many more, Lyn wondered if her purpose was to be a "bad weather friend." "You know, fair weather friends are only there when everything's good for you," she said. "But a bad weather friend is there to help you in times of need." Being an aid to people didn’t only make them happy, but also made Lyn feel a wellspring of joy within. "The best way for me to feel good is to help other people feel good, just to make it easier for them," Lyn said. Plus she found some new and heartfelt friendships.

Surprisingly, Lyn was once not the same woman as she is now. Four decades ago, she was arrested for shoplifting. Quite laboriously, she hauled herself out of it. "I learned to stop it, to be better. I went into therapy and kind of got a feel for why I felt the need to, for the high, for shoplifting and that helped. And then many years later I was finally diagnosed as bipolar. And that helped because I got on medication to make me even instead of the highs and the lows. And so that's made a big difference," she said.

From there, she became determined to cultivate her good, humanly, kind side. When she was 31, she donated bone marrow to a patient who was a stranger to her. And recently, she fostered a pup named Sully who is disabled with three legs. Overall, Lyn Story’s story is a beuatiful story about the life-changing magic of finding purpose.