My Toddler Sees Dead People

Postmarked: Michigan, USA

Subject: My toddler sees dead people

On the night of my father-in-law's funeral, a dove showed up at our house. My two-year-old son said, "Look! It's Papa! He's come to play on the swings tomorrow." Papa is my dead father-in-law.

Two unrelated tales of toddlers seeing dead people. And a few extra "something weird" stories around funerals. Host Beth Anne Campbell welcomes her sister Allison to help with these twisted tales.

If you have a twisted tale to share, go to https://www.bethannecampbell.com/somethingweird

And remember... stay skeptical, but don't run TOWARDS the noise!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

On the night of my father-in-law's funeral, a dove showed up at our house. My two-year-old son said, Look, it's Papa. He's come to play in the swings tomorrow. Papa is my dead father-in-law. I'm Bethane Campbell, and this is Something Weird Happened Here. Welcome to Something Weird Happened Here, the podcast for people who love a twisted tale but aren't afraid to poke at it a bit. We share stories that are postmarked peculiar and then explore the story with curiosity and an open mind. Stay tuned after the show to find out how to submit your strange saga, and maybe we or you will share it on air. Now let's get started, because no matter where you are in this mysterious world, something weird happened here. This tale is postmarked Michigan USA. Subject line, My Toddler Sees Dead People. Today we have two similar stories, and I'm thrilled to have my sister Alison here to help me out with them. Ella's guarding me to make sure I don't look for her porn on her laptop. Oh my gosh, mom.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

We're gonna talk about you today, Ella. So there you go. I told her that too. She was, I was like, We're gonna talk about you. She's like, I don't even remember. I said, that's fine. We can still talk about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

That's the glory. That's the glory of uh of of when they grow up and then they forget. Well, let me officially welcome you here to Something Weird Happened Here. I so appreciate your um taking your time out of your day and your busy schedule to come and talk about this. Um, just for the the the audience, so how this all kind of came to be is a couple months ago I put out a post on social media just asking my friends, family colleagues if they had ever experienced anything unexplainable. And one of my friends now um former colleague now friend um submitted a story about her toddler seeing dead people in her family. And so um we're gonna talk a little bit about that, but that also reminded me, Allie, of you, my wonderful sister, um, the story, really multiple stories of when our mom died and some weird things that happened. Oh, yeah, including a possible dead person sighting. So thanks for for coming on to talk about that. I appreciate it. So I'm gonna first um kind of read through the story from my friend first, and then we can kind of talk a little bit about it, and then um, and then we'll talk, and I want you to tell the story, Z. Um help me tell the stories of the the uh the Ella, yeah. Yeah, of Ella, my niece, your daughter. So the first story we're gonna talk about um comes from, I'll call her Connie. So the names have been changed out of respect for the living and the dead. So, but thank you, Connie, for the submission. You rock. I love you. So Connie says, My youngest son used to see dead people. We had a funeral from my brother-in-law, Bill, in 2003 when my son Tyson was six months old. Tyson never really met Bill. Even if he did, he wouldn't remember him. A white dove flew into Tyson's window the night of the funeral, and it stayed there for two days. Fast forward to 2005 when my father-in-law passed away. That would be, I believe that's Bill's dad. Tyson's now two and a half, right? So we release doves at my father-in-law's funeral. We go home, and that night, again, a dove shows up, and Tyson says, Hey, look, it's Papa. Papa's what he called um her father-in-law. Yeah. He's come to play on the swings for tomorrow. And she's like weird, but whatever. The next day, Tyson goes outside to play on the swings. He comes in and he says, I was swinging with Papa and Uncle Bill. Connie says, I'm super weirded out now. And I grab a photo album and I ask Tyson to point out Uncle Bill. He knows him, goes right for the picture. Tyson says he hangs out with Uncle Bill all the time outside in the backyard. So this faded after about a year, and I've asked Tyson about this over the years. He doesn't remember any of it, but it definitely kept me up for a while. So that's kind of the story that um we'll talk about um a similar story in a minute, but Allie, you you you're a breeder, right? You so you um you bred. I have yes, I'm a breeder.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

I have bred.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

And you hobnob with other breeders. Have any of your friends or whatever ever um talked about any weird stuff or like pat like their kids like knowing things that they didn't know?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

I don't recall. I was trying to think of that too in the past like week or so since we chatted. I don't recall any of them ever having like a moment where they thought, yeah, or where they've talked about weird things about their kids, which kind of made me all feel I always feel like I was a crazy person. I'm like, what what do you mean? Like yeah, Ella's just a crazy person. But I think sometimes it's you know, little kids, we time sometimes they say things and we don't always believe or connect what they're saying to something else, you know what I mean? Like they're they'll always say things, they'll always do things. But I truly don't I think that as they get like older, they they forget, they completely have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, but I agree. I think that's that there's there's two sides of that. Like, so on the one hand, I I know so many people, I've heard so many people talk about their kids saying things like like, oh no, that was my other mommy before you, right? Like implying his past life. But I also know just because this this show is really about being curious and and just you know poking a little bit, but I also think that kids do even little, even babies, even a six-month-old could pick up on things, you know, like we think nobody they they couldn't possibly know about um you know Uncle Bill, Uncle Bill from the family of yeah, yeah. Um but but they you know they could, they could hear things and they could pick it up. Um, you know, it could be coincidence, but honestly, if I were a parent and my kid did um did that, I would probably freak out and shit my pants because I don't and I say this as a ghost hunter for 10 years. I just if I ever did witness something really creepy, I I don't know. I don't know how how I'd deal.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

It's you know, you just sometimes with kids you just gotta take it and right either either they're it's either they're wild imaginations or they're actually seeing something.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So well, I think it could be possible. I think if you believe Yeah, if you believe in past lives, and I think the theory being that once kids get to a certain age, they start getting indoctrined and brainwashed. And we know that's true. That this is this is logically scientifically true. Forget past lives, what we learn and absorb in our childhood um is very powerful. And so, you know, if you have parents who are ignoring you or you're not, and then you just maybe forget because you're so far removed from that past life, if that theory were true. Kind of creepy though. Yep. So um, similar story in our own family. So I'm gonna set the stage and then I'm gonna turn it over to you to kind of tell because you I wasn't really there for either of the two incidents um that I had we had talked about, um, but you are aware of them and were there at least for one of them. So um, so our mother died in 2008. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer, like on a Monday, and four leak four weeks later, she was gone. It was very quick. So for her last few days, she came home under hospice care and she was in the house where Allie and I grew up. She was in one of the spare bedrooms. I'll I call it the mom room because it was of course, every closet had her clothes in them, but this particular closet was the closet that you used to come home from college or wherever, and you'd go, let's go shopping in mom's closet because all of her clothes that she always finds some good deals.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

It's always totally a great deal when it's free.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

She had a lot of clothes, but um that is decorated in her very feminine kind of country style and shoes, yeah. Shoe pictures, yes. Yeah, my mom was a like a um collectible shoe collector. So but anyway, so she was in the spare bedroom. Actually, we used to be my bedroom, and then was Allie's bedroom um uh at some point um as we were growing up. So I think it was everybody's bedroom. Exactly. Pretty much, at least all the girls, anyway. So um, so she passed away on a Monday and it was around noon, and it wasn't long after that, like maybe the next day, or maybe it was even that same day that there was an incident. So, Allie, I'm gonna let you tell that story of what happened because I think I heard it from you.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah. So um the day that she passed, like later on that night, you know, we're kind of all trying to figure out and plan. We're talking to mom's husband at the time. Ella's taking a nap. And who will call just call dickhead to call him dickhead? Yes. Because he was. He was. So Ella was taking a nap in mom's actual bedroom that had like the the big king size bed.

unknown 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

You know, because at 18 months she could roll around so I could stick her flat dab in the middle of that thing. Potentially hope that she didn't roll over and fall off. Yeah. Potentially. But I mean, you know, in 18 months they bounce apparently. It was carpeted.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

It was carpeted.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

It'd be fine. And the process of talking with like between all of us, with like Dickhead and um just all of us, we were talking, you know, what clothes she well, she'd already told me what clothes she wanted to be buried in. That she had already told me. So we were looking for the jewelry that he specifically wanted. And dickhead. That would be dickhead. Dickhead, dickhead, yes. So we had she this one, my our mother had jewelry everywhere. Tons. Like the the the mom room had a ton of jewelry, her bedroom had a ton of jewelry. It had it like she had a thing that was hanging on the back of her closet door that was filled with different types of jewelry. She, I mean, this crap was one of those. I did.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Congratulations, your mom. Your mom. Your mom. Um, she was like a borderline just for anybody out there. She was a hoarder. I wouldn't call her like a full-on a hoarder because like hoarders are like messy, but she was definitely like a I will call her a fashion hoarder because she has shitloads of clothes and shitloads of jewelry. She just loved buying and wearing.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yep. So there was this specific set of earrings and specific necklace that we were looking for of mom in in that. Like I actually have that picture now hanging on one of my actually, I might have it somewhere close by. But um, so I actually have a picture of that jewelry. So we were all tearing apart looking for. I, you know, we'd all, you know, we had that picture to ref for reference. We all knew what we were looking for.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

She wore that stuff all the time, that set too. She had there were several pictures, I think, of her in that that particular set.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

And it was it was insane that we couldn't find it. So like we had terrorized everywhere in that bedroom, but we terrorized it quietly because Ella was napping in there.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

So we were trying to be very boxes, bags, closet, jewelry boxes, storage organizers, like every jewelry, like things that hang yes, all the things.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

She was, yes, mom, mom had a jewelry problem. It's possible she passed that on to me. I don't, you know, there's a 12-step program, but I'm not interested.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

No judgment, at least not on air. I do, I do judge, but I can't judge myself too.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

So but um, so we, I mean, I mean, there were probably seven or eight people tearing. I remember like everybody was looking for these. So we couldn't find it. We give up. We're like, fine, we'll just have to find something else. So about an hour and a half later, you know, back in those days when Ella actually took long, lovely, luxurious naps. I'm like, oh, I should go wake up Ella. She hadn't made a sound. She wasn't making any, she wasn't crying or anything. But I was like, oh, we should probably go check on her. She's been quiet for a while. That could be dangerous with a small child. So I go in there, she's just sitting up cross-legged on the bed and just her diaper and her shirt. And she's wearing the necklace and holding one of the earrings that we were looking for. So to this day, that little girl, because she knows this story, she's heard it enough times. She um, like, we have that jewelry. I mean, I know it was supposed to be buried with mom, but we took it because she didn't need it. Allegedly. Allegedly. She didn't need it anymore. Um, so she her or she was wearing the necklace, holding the earrings. And we had a hunt, like it was on the bed. The other earring was on the bed. So I have no clue in the world where she found this. I have no, I mean, she would have, I mean, it 18 months, she would have no idea what we were looking for.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

She would or perhaps did Grandma Sandy help her find it?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

That's what I think. I think grandma saw us looking.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

If she did, it wasn't because she really wanted us to find it, it was because she was like, Stop going through my freaking closets and messing up all my clothes and jewelry. Here it is.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

No, she probably wanted it as a goodbye for Ella. So she could probably say goodbye to Ella and give this to your mommy. That's probably what she said. Who knows? Ella was not she she talked a lot when she was 18 months, but it never made any sense, much like it doesn't now.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

But so tell tell the story too, because there's a second incident, and I can't remember if this happened before or after when she was with our other sister Sue. I thought that one was in the mom room where she passed. That one was in the that one was in the mom room.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

So so the day afterwards, you and me, and probably Dan, my husband. Yeah, and and we have a large family. We there's a lot of us. We yeah, yes. Talk about breeders. Um, so we were I can't remember who else was there. It was probably my husband, because or he went, I don't know, who knows. All I know is that I didn't have Ella with me. Or our sister Sue stayed home to watch the kids. So they didn't have to, you know, who wants to chase children around a funeral home? So our sister Sue stayed home to watch the kids. So Sue had Ella in that room. They were just kind of hanging out, playing. I think there was probably toys for the kids or something in that room, or Sue just wanted to be near the room. Who knows? Um, but she and Ella were sitting on the bed, um, just kind of playing, hanging out. And Ella kept looking at the corner of the room, like you know, like just standing in the corner and waving and saying, Hi grandma. She just kept waving, saying, Hi, Grandma, hi grandma, in the corner of the room. So she definitely, I believe, saw grandma. I I I do believe that. Um, and you know, it was just not looking over us.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

That's the one that kind of creeps me out. Like the necklace one, I can I can it's too much of a coincidence for me to like really go logic on it, but I can there's a in the back of my mind I can't mind I can go, okay. Well, maybe she was just laying on it for the first in the first place. I don't know. But that one is like, yeah, grandma, grandma. Like it gives me chills just thinking about it right now.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yeah, she would she would say hi grandma and Emma and Evan, who definitely, it's not that Ella wasn't close to grandma, but she was just so much younger. Emma was like the the the little one that you know we've all seen the pictures of like mom and Emma walking, like Ella, my oldest like naked walking.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

So they were very close. So um you told me in a text that you might have another story.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So this is just one of those creepy weird coincidences. Okay. So when we were choosing the hymns for her funeral, one that she always liked that she told me she wanted, it was one of my favorites, excuse me, which is How Great Thou Art. So we played How Great Thou Thou Art was at her funeral. Anyways, you know, for years, I like used to have to every once in a while play that song so that every time I heard it in church, I didn't like pass like just blubbering, foolish idiot. So, anyways, yes, the this past week we had the house painted. And for years, ever since mom died, she had this little stone girl that she had originally purchased, I think right around when my oldest Emma was born, because it reminded her of Emma. I mean, mom had like a blanket that reminded her of Ella, like she had those things, like they reminded her of her grandchildren. But this little stone girl she had bought and it had sat in her garden because it reminded her of Emma. So when she passed, I brought that little stone girl home. As it turns out, I have three children who were little demons. So at one point, and Evan confessed this past Sunday that it was probably him that did it, but somebody knocked over the little stone girl and she broke in half.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Oh, for God's sakes, Evan.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Literally broke like years ago, like probably 10 years ago, this little stone girl broke in half. And I was like, Well, I I can't get rid of her, right? That was in mom's garden. That's that's we're we're just gonna have to keep the broken half, you know, the magic act of little stone girl forever.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, half a girl.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Put her up against a tree, you can only see the side of her. So, right. So, like, so this past week we had the house painted, and the gentleman who painted our house, I had forgotten to move the little stone girl away from the house just because you know she's been broken for so long. I forget, you know, whatever. So I think he dropped a couple pieces of paint on her and picked her up to move her, then realized that she was broken. He knew he didn't break. Did you did you fake like you were horrified? Like, oh my god, what did you do? No, I know. I'm just kidding. I I never knew. I never knew. So, like he found something to like take the paint off, but also to whiten her. So he whitened her. He because she's old, she he whitened her. He and I didn't, and I I'd have fixed this darn thing years ago if I knew this was a thing. But there's concrete in a tube. I know.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

I I should have, I I know, I knew of this. If I had known, I would have, I would have mentioned that too. But yeah, it's a miracle.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

How handy I am. It's how handy I am, apparently. So he researched it, went and bought concrete in a tube, and fixed a little stone girl. Like, so like and I I did not notice like the the first like the first night. I didn't notice because I was whatever. I was probably so excited to go outside and see the house. So I look out the window Sunday morning, and there's the little stone girl standing by a tree. And I look at Ella, you know, the crazy one who sees everything. I said, I think he fixed her. She's like, No, I said, She's standing up, she's not leaning on anything. So we went out. Yes, of course, he'd fixed her. But anyways, the where this story makes me think of just like supernatural things is remember how I said the hymn that I always used to have to play to kind of not to kind of basically basically, you know how you you, you know, those who are allergic to something, they slowly take little bites so they're not allergic. Yeah. I had to continually listen to that so I would become desensitized to it. Honestly. Yes, how great thou art or fart, whichever way. But so we go to church on Sunday, and and I'm telling you this hymn, I haven't heard this hymn in church in probably 10 years. We go to church on Sunday, and of course that's play. I'm sitting next to my friend, my friend Carlene, and sitting next to my husband, and I'm just like, oh good. So we want me to cry all damn day today. Because I'm like, seriously, and I'm like barely holding it together while they're playing this so this hymn. Wow. It's not like it's it's a known hymn, like Carrie Underwood didn't.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

I know, but I'm but I'm just saying there is an element here because and I do because right again, curiosity and bolts poke at it, it's probably coincidence, but that's kind of creepy, like that. That's you know, mom was mom was happy that she's fixed her b beloved little stone little big girl.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yep. And that's after I spent the morning like before I even went to church, like half crying because this guy had fixed her, and I was like, Oh my god, do you tip a painter?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

I'll try to insert a little picture of that. Um, because you sent you sent me a picture of it. So I'm gonna try to insert that in the video for this.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

So it was just the sweetest little thing, and she just I was like, it's silly, but you know, it's one of those things that you can't get rid of things that remind you of the people that you miss and love. So oh yeah, that was one of those strange things that oh, okay. So she's fixed now, and I didn't know you could fix concrete.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

What do I know? You want to talk about something weird happened here. My sister r finally discovered concrete in a tube, and it's just amazing. That is yeah. I thought of um a story around since we're talking about our mom and our mom's death, but do you remember the story that our niece Jordan told about when she and her friend Becca were toilet papering dickheads, aka our former house? I don't remember that. All right, I'm gonna tell you the story right now. So the the memory that I have of Jordan telling me this. So Jordan is our niece. Jordan was living at our mother's our childhood home with our sister, her mother. And um my mother's husband, we are generally not a fan of. Sickhead. Yeah, he they were only married for like four and a half months, and long story, but um, you know, it was not a it was not a channel will. Yeah, it was sorry for another time in another podcast. But anyway, there was a lot of anger, um, right? So he was now in the house. He had actually um they had left the house, um, my sister, uh, our sister and uh our niece. So she was somewhere between 14 and 17 at the time. Um, and she and her friend you know, could be again, there was a lot of anger at the um the husband. So she went one night, she and her friend went out to uh this house that he was still living in. This is again our childhood home for like 40 years. And they were toilet papering because he would go away for the weekend and they knew he wasn't gonna be there, so they were toilet papering, just you know, getting a little bit of the emotion. You know, they just lost, she just lost her grandma. She was living in the house, so she, you know, was closer to her physically than um and and uh other than my sister, anybody else. So um they're doing this TPing thing, and then her friend says to her at some point, Who's that pretty lady up in the window who is waving at us? And she just She described this person and Jordan said it sounded like a grandma, which is our mom. And she said she was kind of laughing almost like she was approving of what they were doing. But she the friend actually saw a woman in a window. There was nobody home. And um, according to Jordan, what I recall is that the description of the woman was um our mom, our and she was a pretty woman. She was a pretty woman. So um, but even to some of the description, as I remember, just made it made Jordan think, oh, that was grandma. Um and and in some sort of like laughing, like, ha ha, you know. She was probably saying stick it to him. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

That's what she was saying.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Fuck 'em. Yeah. Like you said, a story for another another podcast.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

But oh, that's a whole podcast in and of itself, is that guy.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

I hope when this airs that more people come out and tell me about their um their kids like having past lives or seeing dead people, because I love those stories.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Those are amazing. I s and I do like like every once in a while, like I and I can't I don't know why I can't remember specifics, probably because I have the attention span of a gnat. Um like of other people telling me things. And I swear, like I've you hear these stories all the time about little kids who see all the because little kids still they they haven't been kind of, I don't want to say brainwashed, but told not to believe in those things, that those are silly. So they still believe. They believe everything they see.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, yeah. I think that's what it is. I mean, that's that's the theory anyway, is that w whatever they see or or if they're remembering a past life, it just gets, I don't know, adulted out of them for lack of a better word.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Well, we shame we shame them into oh, you're just seeing things. Oh, that's your imaginary friend. And who knows, maybe it is, but maybe it's not.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Well, you know, you wonder, kind of wonder. I used to have imaginary, um, an imaginary um family of bears that lived in the closet, in the closet in that in the death room. Yeah. Yeah. I I and they were nice. It was like kind of like Goldilocks bear family, and I just I really believed that they lived there and they were watching over me. But I also used to have a recurring dream that um there was a severed hand sticking out of a behind from behind the dresser. And I had this dream over and over again until somebody told me, and I was probably eight at the time, and in that room, or in the in our mother's death room, somebody told me that it you can um manipulate your own dreams. And so I had that dream again. And in my dream, I made myself go and look behind the dresser because it in my in the few first, you know, half a dozen times that I dreamed it, it scared the shit out of me because it was a dresser against a wall and it was just an arm. Like what could be behind there? Nothing. It had to be a severed arm. And I knew I know where the arm came from. It was a movie that I was watching that I'd watch. But I had the courage to go in my in my in my dream to go and see what was behind the dresser, and it was um our brother Steve um just trying to scare me. And I never had the dream again because I had the courage, I guess, to face it.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Sounds exactly like something that Steve would do too.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

And Joe.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Yeah, all pretty much all of our brothers.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

But yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Anyway, well, Allie, thank you so much for joining me today on the show. I super appreciate it. And if you think of any other um creepy stories, just let me know. You're like like my dream co-host and guest, so I'll I'll bring you back on. Of course. And there you have it, two tales filed under My Toddler Sees Dead People. If you have a twisted tale, listen to the end credits to find out how to submit your story. We may go over it on air, and you could even be a guest on the show, but only if you want. We can keep you anonymous. For now, thanks for joining Something Weird Happened Here. And remember, stay skeptical, but don't run towards the noise. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining this episode of Something Weird Happened Here. If you have a twisted tale that you witnessed, experienced, or heard from a reliable source, go to Bethancampbell.com slash something weird to learn more and submit your story. If your tale is twisted enough, we'll share it on air during one of our episodes and might even invite you to be a guest on the show. And we're not picky. Your something weird happened here could be paranormal, psychic UFOs, near-death experiences, dreams, parallel dimensions, bigfoot chupacabra, or any other weird and unexplained phenomena. We don't discriminate. If you're into paranormal mysteries that are scary, fun, and realistic, pick up a copy of my latest book, The RIP Files, Case of the Demon Drums, the first in a series inspired by real cases that I, Bethane Campbell, worked on when I was a ghost hunter for nearly a decade. Case of the Demon Drums is available on Amazon and most online bookstores. And finally, we would so so appreciate it if you would rate and review us on your favorite streaming platform and or on YouTube. Thanks again, and remember, stay skeptical, but don't run towards the noise.