Dearly Departed

Transcript

Speaker 1 If one could peel back one's own skin and peer at that which lies within, then one might search and still not see

Speaker 1 there is no you

Speaker 1 and there is no me.

Speaker 1 It's time.

Speaker 1 You're listening to Spooked.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 My mother and I,

Speaker 1 we don't often see eye to eye. And as the years pass,

Speaker 1 I feel our chances for reconciliation, for healing,

Speaker 1 I feel they're slipping away.

Speaker 1 Like we're missing basic understandings of why our core values so offend the other.

Speaker 1 And I want to understand my mother, I do.

Speaker 1 I want to know better from where she came.

Speaker 1 I have so

Speaker 1 very few pictures from her younger years. So few.

Speaker 1 It was a rare thing to aim a camera at a skinny brown girl when she was a child.

Speaker 1 But recently, a cousin sent me a gift.

Speaker 1 A photo.

Speaker 1 Damn, it's water stain.

Speaker 1 There she is.

Speaker 1 A teenager beaming, relaxed with her sisters on the precipice of the unfolding of her life. And I stare at this crumbling picture into a happy space.

Speaker 1 This person I've never known.

Speaker 1 Constantly smiling back at the camera.

Speaker 1 I want people to be nice to that girl. She is so sweet.
She has such a big heart.

Speaker 1 I want to dive into this photo and tell people to please, please, please

Speaker 1 be kind to this little girl.

Speaker 1 Treat her gently.

Speaker 1 I want the world in this picture to give her flowers and sing her songs and make her feel safe. And I know.

Speaker 1 I know it will do none of those things.

Speaker 1 It will not.

Speaker 1 And I want to tell her to run because, girl, in the picture, the bad thing is coming and you need to get out of there right now.

Speaker 1 The dark thing is coming.

Speaker 1 Run away.

Speaker 1 Please, mother.

Speaker 1 Run away.

Speaker 1 Two stars.

Speaker 1 The dark thing is coming. The dark thing is coming.
Our first storyteller, Lynn, takes us to Canada, the small island city of Victoria, British Columbia.

Speaker 1 And this Victoria, it's a kind of place that still feels like an old English village. Protecting tea is a popular pastime, but as Lynn learned one night,

Speaker 1 this curtain

Speaker 1 is more like a veil.

Speaker 1 I let Lynn take it from here.

Speaker 1 Spooked.

Speaker 2 This was in the early 90s. I was with my two friends.
It was a Saturday. We decided to go for a drive along Beach Drive in Oak Bay.

Speaker 2 It was raining a little bit when we left and we were riding in my Red Volkswagen bug.

Speaker 2 The friend in the front seat was my best girlfriend, and the friend in the back seat was

Speaker 2 another best friend of mine.

Speaker 2 We were wanting to have a bite to eat, and we decided that we would go to Oak Bay for some fish and chips.

Speaker 2 By the time we were finished with our fish and chips, it was dark and we weren't quite ready to go home yet.

Speaker 2 We thought that we would just cruise around a little bit along Beach Drive and try and catch the moonlight and

Speaker 2 just sort of kill some time before you went home to watch Star Trek.

Speaker 2 Well, Beach Drive is an old drive in Victoria. There's a marina there, an old hotel called the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, which has since been remodeled, and then a golf course.

Speaker 2 We drove past the golf course and we could still see the moon. It was dark and then we continued on towards the Oak Bay Beach Hotel.

Speaker 2 It was quite dark but it seemed to get even darker than dark

Speaker 2 and it started to rain.

Speaker 2 What I first see is the moonlight coming through the trees

Speaker 2 and then we didn't have any music on but we all just sort of naturally fell silent because it just seemed darker than it should be

Speaker 2 and in that darkness I saw a shadow

Speaker 2 I was quite worried because it was so stormy all of a sudden that there was a person caught out in the rain

Speaker 2 and I turned on my high beams and as soon as my high beams hit the object what we were looking at really was a glowing woman in a white dress

Speaker 2 and she wasn't walking she was floating and she had no face

Speaker 2 it was like a shifting nothingness a glowing shifting nothingness and throughout the car was this sound of oh

Speaker 2 When we finally realized what we were looking at, my friend in the back seat screamed, step on the gas,

Speaker 2 because we just needed to get out of there. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I did slow enough where we were able to watch her walk.

Speaker 2 She was walking towards the hotel,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 2 at least that seemed like it was her destination.

Speaker 2 Like she knew where she was going, like she knew what her fate was going to be. And she just seemed really sad.

Speaker 2 My friend in the back seat started to cry, and I just kept on saying, I think we just saw a ghost. You guys, I think we just saw a ghost.

Speaker 2 And we were a little

Speaker 2 nervous about the whole thing, but we were also quite excited. that something like that had actually happened with us all in the car and we all saw the same thing.

Speaker 2 When I got home, I called my Auntie Joyce because I used to like sharing exciting things that happened to me in Victoria. And so I called her and I said, Auntie Joyce,

Speaker 2 we were driving along Beach Drive

Speaker 2 and we saw a ghost.

Speaker 2 And she paused and she said, You're very lucky you saw Doris.

Speaker 2 Well, the story my auntie told me was that in the 1930s, Doris was a nurse and she had a husband who had an alcohol problem and they had separated.

Speaker 2 And on this night, he had invited her to try and reconcile to the Oak Bay Beach Hotel. She had gone there that night to meet with him

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 they had had an argument in the hotel but they decided to take it outside so they started to go to walk towards the golf course and I guess they did make it to the golf course and go quite deep into the golf course because it's quite dark at night.

Speaker 2 So they were there at nighttime

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 they had an argument and he beat her to death and the next day a caddy found her body and they looked into the water and her husband was floating in the water.

Speaker 2 He killed himself shortly after killing her.

Speaker 2 She's the most famous ghost in Victoria.

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Speaker 10 Oh, well, I just step. step.
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Speaker 2 So the question is,

Speaker 1 why?

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 2 Why after such a horrible experience, why couldn't she live, relive some of her better experiences? Why is it that one that she comes back to?

Speaker 2 And the thought of this person repeating their steps

Speaker 2 over and over again, probably still trying to figure out what happened and why somebody they they love took their life.

Speaker 2 This woman is still walking and still experiencing these things.

Speaker 2 It was September that we saw her, and it was also September that she was killed. And I wonder if she was

Speaker 2 re-walking her path. Maybe she does it every year,

Speaker 2 trying to figure out what she could have done differently.

Speaker 2 Whenever I go back to Victoria, I still drive that road, hoping that I'll see her again.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Lynn, for introducing us to Doris. Folks, Lynn is a spooked listener.
She shared her spooky story with us, and we want you to do the same thing, spooked, at stepjudgment.org.

Speaker 1 The original score for that story was by Andrew Butler. It was produced by Greta Weber.

Speaker 1 Now spooksters,

Speaker 1 You may want to pull up close for this one because we're going up north to Canada. Their storyteller, Desiree Desiree,

Speaker 1 it's a beautiful summer night. Desiree is sitting around a campfire with her nearest and dearest.
They're just settling in.

Speaker 1 It's around that time when folks start to tell stories.

Speaker 1 Spooked.

Speaker 13 I'm 28. I've just finished working for the summer as a tree planter.
And I'm back at my parents' cabin on this beautiful lake called Clearwater Lake.

Speaker 13 and this is my most happy place.

Speaker 13 It is starry, it's warm, it's clear, it's just like the perfect summer night.

Speaker 13 We have a fire every night and the bonus is is that my auntie Carol and my uncle Ken are visiting.

Speaker 13 I hadn't seen my Auntie Carol in a while. She and my mom have been good friends for well over 40 years.
So I was very pleasantly surprised and pleased to sit around the campfire with them after

Speaker 13 dinner.

Speaker 13 It's getting dark around the campfire so that when you're sitting with everyone, everyone's getting that orange glow.

Speaker 13 I was sitting at the picnic table. We had scooted it closer to

Speaker 13 the fire. We were just sitting around chatting.

Speaker 14 Desiree and her family do not usually talk about ghosts, but Aunt Carol is that kind of an aunt, more of a friend of the family, not a blood relative. The rules don't really apply to her.

Speaker 14 So as the fire dims down, the shadows get longer, and Auntie Carol brings it up.

Speaker 13 So Auntie Carol describes how

Speaker 13 at night when she's in her bed, she hears footsteps pacing around,

Speaker 13 and she really connected that to loved ones watching over her

Speaker 13 and then she said she would when she was away from her daughter she would ask those same spirits or people to watch over her daughter and her daughter would hear footsteps around her bed

Speaker 14 auntie carol's daughter is jen and jen doesn't share her mother's love for the spirit realm

Speaker 13 she says no jen doesn't like that so I had to ask the spirits to go away and not bug her so much.

Speaker 13 The back of my neck starts to tingle right when she says this, when she brings in her daughter Jen,

Speaker 13 and I get this memory flood back to me, and I just went

Speaker 13 and I just launched into my story.

Speaker 14 Desiree was only six and Jen was just a baby. Auntie Carol dropped Jen off at Desiree's house for the weekend.
The two of of them slept together in Desiree's bedroom.

Speaker 13 I woke up in the middle of the night and what woke me up was her crying, this very loud screaming crying.

Speaker 13 As I was opening my eyes, there was just lightning, there was a thunderstorm and it was just crashing and booming and crashing and booming.

Speaker 13 That lightning that was happening would just flash and light up the whole room and a second would go by and it would go dark dark dark and then it would flash and light up the whole room

Speaker 13 I was looking at her because she was so upset she was standing up in her crib towards the door with her arms outreached that's when I looked at the door because I was like what is she doing and I could see someone standing in the door and I just thought it was my mom because that's who would come and get the baby if she was crying

Speaker 13 but as I focused in my eyes to like look closer at like why isn't my mom moving? So like why hasn't she gotten the baby?

Speaker 13 The figure didn't move and then my attention kind of started slowing down of like something's happening here.

Speaker 13 This person was wearing like a long

Speaker 13 old-fashioned style nightgown. It just seemed very unlike something my mom would wear, but I couldn't see anything on the front.
It was just dark. The lightning is backlighting this person.

Speaker 13 It's so dark in my room, but the windows from the living room behind are lighting her up from behind. And that's when I see

Speaker 13 that there's this white, puffy hair on top of this person. And my mom has straight jet black hair.

Speaker 13 And I just froze.

Speaker 13 I could feel this weird sense coming over me: like, that's not my mom.

Speaker 13 Who is that? And why is this baby screaming so loud and looking at it? The baby is seeing what I'm seeing.

Speaker 13 I knew I was looking at something that wasn't supposed to be in the house.

Speaker 13 Like everything tensed up and I couldn't move.

Speaker 13 And when I did move, it was the one movement of diving under my blankets. And I just

Speaker 13 stayed there, petrified.

Speaker 13 I wasn't going to look again just in case

Speaker 13 I just didn't know what would happen if I looked again.

Speaker 13 I just remember it going black and dark and I don't remember anything after that.

Speaker 13 I knew I was scared at night a lot after that, but I think I pushed it so far down.

Speaker 13 And I didn't think of that memory until that night around the campfire.

Speaker 13 And as I'm telling Auntie Carol this story, she turns white. And I look at her and she just looks at me and says, that's the weekend I went to my mother's funeral.
That had to have been my mother.

Speaker 13 That's why I left Jen with your mom that weekend. My mom had passed away.
I just excitedly said that had to have been it.

Speaker 13 It had to have been your mom. And I described her.
I said, she had fluffy white hair. And Carol said, yes.
I said, she was short. And Carol said, yes.

Speaker 13 Hearing that story, she was pretty emotional and she was really

Speaker 13 happy. Ugh, my mom got to say goodbye.
My mom did come and say goodbye. And it was such a full circle moment of knowing who it was.

Speaker 13 It wasn't anything I did. It wasn't trying to scare us.
It was just this grandma who loved her granddaughter. Kind of like my grandma, right?

Speaker 14 Desiree had never known her own grandma. Six months before Desiree was born, her grandma Daisy passed away.
Her mom and dad never showed her pictures or videos. It was too sad for a kid.

Speaker 14 But when Desiree was just old enough to form her own sentences,

Speaker 13 I started just saying random things about Grandma Daisy, and I would relay these little tidbits of information that my mom would look at me and go like how do you know that

Speaker 13 she just knew that it was just such weird information that a little girl would know like just randomly it's just she just always thought it's not something you could absorb from a conversation because we didn't have conversations about grandma daisy

Speaker 13 and then it came one day when i was about

Speaker 13 Two, two and a half, not quite three, that I came and I was just sobbing and I said, she's gone. And I cried all day.
I just cried and cried and cried. And my mom did not know what to do with me.

Speaker 13 It's like I grieved her like out of nowhere for no reason. Like it just hit me.
And after that, I refused to let anyone speak about her. That was part of my grief.

Speaker 13 So for my mom, that was a really powerful moment of thinking there was something going on of my grandmother maybe being around me because of this intense day and this intense outburst that she could never explain.

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Speaker 10 Oh, watch your step. Wow, your attic is so dark.
Dark.

Speaker 3 I know, right?

Speaker 10 It's the perfect place to stream horror movies.

Speaker 11 What movie is that?

Speaker 10 I haven't pressed play yet.

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Speaker 14 As Desiree grew up, the intense emotions faded away, and it became more of a nice idea that she could still feel Grandma Daisy's presence.

Speaker 14 Then one summer, when she was on break from college, she was up in northern Manitoba, out in the middle of the woods, planting trees.

Speaker 13 It's really hard manual labor. You get up in the morning and you've got to get your clothes on quick because you're chilly.

Speaker 13 You know, out of your warm sleeping bag, into your warm clothes, into the mess tent to get your breakfast and pack your lunch.

Speaker 13 Tree planting is monotonous. You have bags around your waist that you carry the little saplings in.

Speaker 13 You just put your shovel straight in the ground, straight up and down, wedge a hole, wiggle, wiggle, throw a tree in, quickly close it, and then take two more steps.

Speaker 13 You just get into this movement that is, you know, looking for the next spot where you're going to put that tree and then getting there with your two steps.

Speaker 13 You always have to follow the last line of trees you planted because you don't want to have any holes on your land.

Speaker 14 Early one overcast spring morning, Desiree was planting trees out in the woods.

Speaker 13 I could get into the zone, like I could really zone out really quick.

Speaker 13 And I'm nearing the end of a

Speaker 13 trench at the back of my land. And I know the tree line's coming up, but I just head down one tree after the other.

Speaker 13 And probably

Speaker 13 about three trees away from the end of the trench, I just hear this voice right in my ear that startles me that says, you need to look up now.

Speaker 13 Just like, you need to look up now. Like, just stop what you're doing

Speaker 13 definitely scared me where i literally jumped and looked to the left side that i heard it i knew there was no one near me

Speaker 13 but i saw a bear at the end of my trench

Speaker 13 so like pretty close i was

Speaker 13 closer than i'd been to a bear before

Speaker 13 And I just went, oh,

Speaker 13 and I stopped.

Speaker 13 You're supposed to really kind of put your eyes down. You don't want to look aggressively at a big animal.

Speaker 13 And I just waited to see what she would do because she wasn't moving. I could see her whole side and she was just looking at me.
And she just took a step forward and behind her was a baby cub.

Speaker 13 And that's when I got really scared for the first time of...

Speaker 13 Now what is she gonna do?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 13 she's gonna protect her baby.

Speaker 13 My heart was pounding. I've never been scared of being like eaten by a bear, but being mauled by a bear is what I picture.

Speaker 13 It would take you down with its paws and scratch you too deep. Like you'd just be beaten up and really, really hurt.
That would be what I would be the most scared of.

Speaker 13 So

Speaker 13 I tried to get as small as I could in my trench. I put my shovel kind of back behind me so it didn't look like a weapon.

Speaker 13 and I just started to back away keeping an eye on her to make sure she wasn't doing anything to come at me

Speaker 13 but give her the out of you know you have to just take your baby and go you don't have to attack me so I just backed away and she she ran off into the tree line with her baby

Speaker 13 I was shaken.

Speaker 13 That voice saved me.

Speaker 13 It was so real. It wasn't in my head.

Speaker 13 Like, if I didn't look up, I would have been super close to her and she would have just

Speaker 13 defended herself and defended her baby because I was so not paying attention. I just wasn't at all.

Speaker 13 It was an outside source that told me to be careful.

Speaker 13 It had to have been my grandmother, like my grandmother saved me.

Speaker 13 I left my peace, I grabbed my bag with my lunch, and I walked down the road. I just said to my neighbor who was tree planting, I said, I can't plant alone today.
Like, I just had an experience.

Speaker 13 I'm shaken. I gotta plant with you today.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 13 And I don't even know if I told them what happened. I just said I saw a bear.

Speaker 13 I couldn't shake it for the rest of the day.

Speaker 13 I've always thought of my grandma, Desiree, as my guardian angel. I felt like we had a connection because I was named after her, and she just really needed to step it up in that moment.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Desiree, for sharing your story of the spooked spookstress. Desiree is a spooked listener.
She wrote in to tell us her story, and you better believe. I need to hear from you.

Speaker 1 Reach out, spooked at stepjudgment.org.

Speaker 1 Original scores by Nicholas Marks is produced by Chris Hembrick.

Speaker 1 Now, spooksters, we walk this dark path together. Do you yourself possess an inexplicable power which no one will believe? Tell us.

Speaker 1 Tell us all about it. Email us your story at spooked at snapjudgment.org.

Speaker 1 Because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener. Let us know.

Speaker 1 And the best way to let the dark side know that you're spooked is by sporting spook gear, the t-shirt of your dreams available right now at snapjudgment.org.

Speaker 1 And remember, if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing, the stupendous Snap Judgment podcast. Storytelling with the beat, it might just change your life.

Speaker 1 Spooks was created by the team that knows to come in from the rain, except, of course, for Mark Ristich. There's Anna Sussman.
Our chief spookster is Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick, A.

Speaker 1 Nguyen, Laura Newsom, Leon Lorimoto, Wenzo Gorio, Teo DeCot, Doug Stewart, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Ferrigno, Jacob Winnick, Tiffany DeLiza, Ann Ford. The spook theme song is by Pat Masidi Miller.

Speaker 1 My name is Com Washington and recall

Speaker 1 that some mirrors will always reflect back more than you wish to see. And broken glass is better than the alternative.
But before taking any drastic steps,

Speaker 1 remember

Speaker 1 first things first

Speaker 1 never

Speaker 1 ever

Speaker 1 never ever never ever never ever

Speaker 1 turned out

Speaker 1 the lights

Speaker 3 support for spooked comes from Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport OAK offers non-stop flights to your favorite destinations across the U.S.