Hunter meets three people whose lives were upended by devastating illnesses. They share their stories of survival and how they refused to let sickness get in the way of living their lives.

Meet this episode's strangers:

- Sandra survived a catastrophic stroke and fell into a coma. Doctors told her mother that she would never wake up. Her mother refused to let doctors remove life support and proved Sandra could still hear by asking her to squeeze their fingers and move her foot. Sandra describes a visit to ?paradise,? where she was told, ?You have a purpose to fulfill,? before being sent back to her life. Now she walks Central Park for miles, has completed the New York City Marathon, and uses her story to show other stroke survivors that ?it?s not the end.? 

- Cheri was a healthy 18?year?old dancer when a mysterious autoimmune disorder suddenly took away her ability to walk and move. Doctors told her parents to prepare for the worst as treatments failed, but Sherry?fully lucid inside a body that couldn?t respond?refused to accept that her life was over. She grieved the loss of the old version of herself, yet slowly shifted from ?why me?? to ?why not me?? as she rebuilt a new life.

- Gil reflects on losing his closest friend, Tom, just before the pandemic and the years it took to process that grief. Then a routine blood test led him to a cancer clinic, where he spent ten days convinced he had only months to live before learning he had a chronic, slow?moving leukemia instead. Those days staring ?into the abyss? forced him to ask whether his life?s work really mattered, and then finding out he was not dying led him to not take life for granted.

Topics:

- Stroke recovery and near-death experiences

- Power of family advocacy in hospitals

- Overcoming autoimmune paralysis

- Reclaiming identity through dance

- Living with chronic leukemia diagnosis

- Finding purpose through medical trauma

- Shifting from why me to why not me

- Importance of mental strength in healing

- Building a legacy after a health scare

Chapters:

00:00:00 Resilience of the human body

00:03:30 Sandra?s Mother Fights For Her After Fatal Stroke Prognosis

00:07:00 Returning From Paradise With a Higher Purpose

00:10:30 Walking the New York City Marathon After a Stroke

00:14:00 Anonymous Stories of Loyalty and Heartbreak

00:17:30 Waking Up Paralyzed From an Autoimmune Disorder at 18

00:21:00 Finding the Internal Fire to Survive a Crisis

00:24:30 Grieving the Loss of Dance and a Former Identity

00:28:00 Shifting From Why Me to Why Not Me

00:31:30 Creating an Online Community for Chronic Illness

00:35:00 How to Process the Death of a Close Friend

00:38:30 Staring Into the Abyss and Assessing Life?s Legacy

Stories from a Stranger is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions in partnership with Higher Ground and AND Media. Music by Jackie Miclau.

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#OvercomingIllness #StrokeSurvivor #NearDeathExperience #MedicalMiracle #Resilience #FindingPurpose #HealingJourney #SurvivorStories #LifeAfterDiagnosis

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Hunter speaks with two strangers about their painful upbringings.

Meet this episode's strangers:

- Lisa Marie shares what it was like to hear the words, ?We are going to have to put you into foster care,? at sixteen, and to be separated from her much younger brother, David. She talks about the memory holes trauma left behind, the rage that followed years later, and how she kept people at a distance for most of her early adulthood. Lisa Marie reflects on the shame of feeling marked by foster care, poverty, and her parents? substance use, and how writing her story helped her reclaim it and let go of the ?scarlet letter? she felt she wore.

- Adriana, who became a mother at seventeen and found herself raising her baby in a women's shelter after being rejected by her family. She describes the shelter as an unexpected village of women supporting each other through crisis, and how that experience cemented her resolve never to ask for help again.

Topics:

- Childhood trauma and its impact on identity

- Navigating the foster care system as a teen

- Survival and sibling bonds after separation

- Healing from parental abandonment and neglect

- Transforming destructive rage into radical empathy

- Reclaiming personal stories through writing

- Teen motherhood and the NYC shelter system

- Finding community and support in shelters

- Breaking generational cycles of hardship

- Building resilience and strength for children

Chapters:

00:00:00 The parents we didn't choose

00:01:24 Entering the foster care system at sixteen

00:02:55 How childhood trauma creates memory holes

00:04:13 The pain of being separated from my brother

00:07:30 Using rage to protect myself from abandonment

00:12:11 Shedding the scarlet letter through writing

00:19:12 Choosing peace and forgiveness over rage

00:20:43 Anonymous notes on parental regret and support

00:22:10 Raising a child in a New York City shelter

00:26:38 Finding a supportive village in the Bronx

00:32:07 Using the shelter as a bridge to a career

00:44:16 Breaking the cycle and shaping the future

Stories from a Stranger is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions in partnership with Higher Ground and AND Media. Music by Jackie Miclau.

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#FosterCare #TeenMotherhoodNYC #Healing #ShelterToStability #ChoosingForgiveness #ItTakesAVillage #Homelessness #SuperMom

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Hunter Prosper meets two strangers who found inspiration in their hardest moments, and learns how one woman's cancer journey led her to find the love of her life.

Meet this episode's strangers: 

- Marco shares the story of the man he knew instantly was the love of his life, the sudden disappearances that shattered him, and the cancer diagnosis that followed their final breakup. As a former dancer, he came to see his illness as his body mourning alongside his heart, and eventually transformed that grief into a three-part choreography, Safe from Sleep?bliss, loss, and journey?that brought him back to the stage after 20 years and all the way to Carnegie Hall.

- Heather once abandoned her art because it felt ?inconvenient? and too vulnerable to share. A sudden cervical cancer diagnosis and a hysterectomy at 35 shattered her dream of carrying a child and left her feeling ?broken?. In the quiet of recovery at her parents? home, she picked up old art supplies and rediscovered a talent that now brings her peace. Over time, she came to see her experience as a strange kind of gift that stripped her down to her ?bare bones,? led her to meet her future husband.

- Ismael is Heather's husband. He wasn?t looking for love when he moved to London and joined a group bike ride?only to realize, on that first ride, that he?d just met his future wife.

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Topics: 

Turning personal suffering into art and purpose 

Reclaiming identity after a medical crisis 

Returning to professional dance at age 50 

Grieving fertility and the path to motherhood 

Finding peace through art during recovery 

Healing family ties through unexpected love 

Navigating surrogacy and embryo preservation

Chapters:

00:00:00 Introduction to transforming pain into purpose

00:01:10 Marco on meeting the love of his life in New York

00:05:04 Dealing with ghosting and emotional grief in 2001

00:07:35 Reconnecting with a lost love after 11 years apart

00:09:50 Facing a cancer diagnosis after a second heartbreak

00:13:48 Creating the dance piece Safe From Sleep to process trauma

00:19:22 Reclaiming freedom and performing at Carnegie Hall at age 50

00:29:18 Heather on letting go of dreams and reconnecting with art

00:31:53 Surviving a cervical cancer diagnosis and a hysterectomy

00:33:48 Using art and the gift of grief to find inner peace

00:43:47 Navigating surrogacy and 13 embryos with husband Ismael

00:52:01 Ismael on finding unexpected love and healing family ties

Stories from a Stranger is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions in partnership with Higher Ground and AND Media. Music by Jackie Miclau.

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#TurningPainIntoArt #TheGiftOfGrief #Harships #HumanConnection #Resilience #StrangerStories 

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Hunter Prosper talks to three strangers who have experienced the death of someone they love to understand how loss reshaped their lives?and how they continue to honor those who are gone.

Meet this episode's strangers:

- Jen, whose younger sister Christie was murdered along with her dog Hunter, and how that single phone call split her life into ?before? and ?after.? She describes the shock of an unexpected, violent death, the feeling of becoming ?untethered,? and the help she?s found through a sibling-loss support group. Jen now says her sister?s name every day to honor her memory.

- Arielle reflects on losing both of her grandfathers, and how learning their stories after their deaths revealed the ways their paths mirror her own. She also explains why asking older adults about their lives is one of the most powerful ways to keep their legacies alive after they are gone.

- Isabel opens up about the night a police officer rang the doorbell at 4 a.m. to tell her family her older brother Jack was in the hospital after a car accident. Jack did not make it. Years after his death, she still feels his presence, and reflects on how even though she is now older than he ever was, he still feels like her older brother. 

Topics:

- Sibling bonds and "first best friends"

- Preserving intergenerational legacies through storytelling

- Spiritual signs and synchronicity 

- Grief support groups and community

- Fostering dogs and giving back 

- How grief transforms over time

- Radical vulnerability as survival

- Living in honor of loved ones

- The power of narrative

- Intuition vs. Anxiety 

Chapters:

00:00:00 How memories live on after death

00:03:15 Jennifer?s Story: Coping with an unexpected sibling loss

00:07:39 Daily rituals: The importance of saying their name

00:11:35 Honoring a legacy through proactive acts of kindness

00:15:21 Reflections on the most beautiful things ever told

00:16:51 Ariel?s Story: The regret of unasked family questions

00:21:30 Preserving family history and carrying on a legacy

00:24:56 Isabel?s Story: Facing tragedy and growing up overnight

00:27:17 Seeing signs: Finding comfort in spiritual connections

00:34:20 Receiving the news: A family?s response to crisis

00:41:11 The evolution of grief and building self-awareness

00:47:34 Radical vulnerability and finding peace in the unknown

Stories from a Stranger is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions in partnership with Higher Ground and AND Media. Music by Jackie Miclau.

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#StoriesFromAStranger #LifeAfterLoss #ActsOfKindness #SiblingLoss #Healing

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Hunter Prosper meets three strangers at three different stages of life and asks them what love means to them. In this episode of Stories from a Stranger, we explore how love looks and feels different at every age?from the dizzying rush of a first crush to the quiet comfort of a lifelong partner, and the ache of wondering if love will ever come at all. Today, yesterday, and tomorrow, love is in the air.

Meet this episode's strangers:

- Sally, 96, who calls a college boy who gave her "a tingle" the love of her life, remembers the man who massaged her frozen feet on a ski trip and became her husband, and recalls the shock of being told she?d never have children, only to get pregnant on her honeymoon and become the matriarch of a sprawling family. She talks about losing her husband Joe, letting go of lovemaking, and living by her motto: ?If you don?t ask, you don?t get.?

- Ella, 18, has never been in love or in a long-term relationship and wonders if that makes her unlovable. After a string of talking stages that go nowhere, she?s left asking, ?Am I the problem?? even as she still believes in love and tries to learn how to be happy on her own.

- Tish, an artist who makes slice?of?life comics, had nearly given up on dating in New York when a quiet, gentle follower named Akeem messaged to say he loved her sense of humor and the way she sees the world. A first dinner turned into skating dates, Comic-Con cosplay, and a second date where she knew she?d marry him. Now married, they go to couples therapy even when things are good, determined to keep choosing each other and to grow together. For Tish, love is an anchor in a world where everything else changes.

Their stories remind us that love isn't one thing. It evolves, it disappoints, it surprises us, and sometimes it finds us when we least expect it.

Topics Covered:

- How love changes at every age

- Different experiences of romantic connection

- Infertility and unexpected pregnancy

- Family legacy and martriarchy

- Aging and letting go of sexual love

- Self-worth and self-doubt

- Intentional partnership and couples therapy

- Modern dating versus old-fashioned, lifelong love

Chapters:

00:00:00 Love Isn't One Thing

00:01:02 Sally's Greatest Love: Bob Brown at Syracuse

00:05:07 Meeting Joe: The Vermont Ski Story

00:08:51 Fertility Struggles and Medical Trauma

00:11:25 Joe's Proposal and Unexpected Pregnancy

00:18:42 Life Philosophy and Letting Go of Dreams

00:24:17 Ella's Story: Young and Searching for Love

00:29:09 Tish's Love Story: Meeting Through Art

00:34:11 First "I Love You" at Comic-Con & Proposal at Pine Bank Arch

00:39:26 Understanding Love and Commitment

00:44:55 Say Yes When It Happens

Stories from a Stranger is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions in partnership with Higher Ground and AND Media. Music by Jackie Miclau.

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#StoriesFromAStranger #LifeAfterLoss #ActsOfKindness #SiblingLoss #Healing

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?Every stranger has a story.? This is what Hunter Prosper realized when he began posting man-on-the-street interviews with real-life strangers to his social media accounts. Now, Hunter is expanding his social media series into a new weekly video and audio podcast, Stories from a Stranger, featuring portraits of multiple strangers connected by themes of love, loss, regret, inspiration, illness, family connections, and more.

In each episode, Hunter brings his innate warmth, curiosity, and charm, interviewing people from all walks of life and sharing anonymously submitted confessions. Interviews start with a question and then grow in unexpected ways as strangers open up and share their most defining moments. From the deaths of loved ones to using their most painful moments as inspiration, to finding their greatest loves, no subject is off-limits. Their stories are raw, intimate, and bursting with humanity.

Right now, it is easy to feel like the world is irrevocably divided. Stories from a Stranger is a warm reminder that we are all human and more connected than we realize. It?s an invitation to empathy. Every stranger has a story. Let?s start listening.

New episodes every Monday, starting May 11th! Subscribe now on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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