McCoy was looking for a safe place to do drugs when something clearly out of place caught his eye: a luxurious brown leather handbag.

McCoy, 36, could relate all too well. One of his few possessions, the sleeping bag he used in an abandoned house, had recently been stolen. Remembering how angered he’d been by his own loss, he resolved to return the purse to its owner.

He began right away, starting with the address on the bill found in the handbag. After traveling much of the day and finally approaching the address on the bill, he was stopped by a woman, who asked whether she could buy the purse. McCoy refused, saying he was searching for its owner. “But I am the owner,” the woman said. “That’s my purse.”

A month earlier, Kaitlyn Smith, 29, a sales representative for a medical device company, had woken up to find her apartment broken into and her purse stolen. Now she came across a tall, messy-looking man holding it tightly. She could instantly tell he wasn’t in good shape.

At Smith’s urging, McCoy told her his story. He’d been in charge of a landscaping business until 2012, when a car accident left him addicted to drugs.

Smith, amazed this stranger had gone to such great lengths to return her bag, asked whether there was anything she could do to help. “I’m a drug addict,” McCoy warned. “I don’t want to intrude on your life; I’m probably gonna let you down.”

Unafraid, Smith gave him her phone number, saying, “If you want to go to rehab (戒毒所), call me.” She then drove him back to his neighborhood and left, thinking that would be the end of it. Two days later, she got a call.

Smith realized that McCoy was serious about getting better, so she dug into her savings account and bought McCoy a plane ticket to Florida. While there, he would call her to let her know how he was doing. “We were getting to know each other,” Smith says. “His scared, desperate voice turned into a healthy, lively one.” After 28 days at a rehab program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, McCoy is drug-free. He lives at a residential recovery center in Baltimore, and a GoFundMe page set up by Smith has covered his rent, groceries, and incidentals. His life is back on track, all because one crime victim could understand another’s loss.

Amazed that he remembered this long and difficult piece of music and played it perfectly, his teachers say Samuel is unbelievable .They say his ability is very rare, but Samuel doesn’t even realize that what he can do is special. Samuel wanted to become a lawyer as it was the wish of his parents, but music teachers told him he should study music instead. Now, he studies law and music.

Samuel can’t understand why everyone is so surprised. “I grew up with music. My mother played the piano and my father played the guitar. About two years ago, I suddenly decided to start playing the piano, without being able to read music and without having any lessons. It comes easily to me — I hear the notes and can bear them in mind — each and every note,” says Samuel.

Recently, Samuel performed a piece during a special event at his college. The piece had more than a thousand notes. The audience was impressed by his amazing performance. He is now learning a piece that is so difficult that many professional pianists can’t play it. Samuel says confidently,” It’s all about super memory — I guess I have that gift.”

However, Samuel’s ability to remember things doesn’t stop with music. His family says that even when he was a young boy, Samuel heard someone read a story, and then he could retell the story word for word.

Samuel is still only a teenager. He doesn’t know what he wants to do in the future. For now, he is just happy to play beautiful music and continue his studies.

Homeless for 30 years, Mick gets tips by playing at a BART station in the Bay Area and begging along the highway. That’s where Jacob Swalwell caught up with him last year. He warned Mick several times to stop.

Swalwell said, “When I got closer, I realized he was a senior citizen. I wanted to know how come he was not on social security. It turned out that he couldn’t get it because he couldn’t even get an ID.” Even with Swalwell’s resources at the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, it took three separate trips to get an identification card. His persistence paid off. Mick is now on Medicaid and has applied for social security benefits.

But Mick’s fresh start was just beginning. Private investigator Mark Askins from Miracle Messages, a nonprofit organization devoted to reconnecting the homeless with their loved ones, heard of Mick s story, and he wanted to help out. Using the little in-formation provided, Askins was able to find Mick’s birth mother Polly living roughly 250 miles away in Eureka, California. “She was just so anxious to see him and talk to him.” Askins said.

Polly didn’t have an easy life either. After leaving her husband, she was a teenage mom struggling to support three kids. Mick was sick and needed surgery when he was 2 years old, so Polly gave him up for adoption to her mother’s friend who could afford to give him the help he needed.

Swalwell and Mark Askins arranged for Mick to fly to meet the mother who gave him up 65 years ago and the family he had never known. Polly’s home is ready to embrace Mick.

Polly has invited Mick to live with her in Eureka, but he’s hesitant to move away from the area where he has spent his whole life. For now, he’s working on getting a car and promises to go back and visit her as often as possible.