My Brother’s Mom says Hi

Nationality: Cuban
Age: 58
Occupation: Retir4ed
Residence: Miami
Performance Date: 4/15/18
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

This was a story I’ve heard from my parents and several relatives for years. So I have three older brothers because my dad was married twice before my mom and his second wife, M, unfortunately passed away when my brother R was 13. Eventually my father remarried and had me when my brother turned 20, but the wound left by his mom’s sudden death never left him.

Fast forward to his 23rd birthday. We were celebrating as a family in the backyard, playing music, about to cut the cake. A toddler (barely three or four) says that his mom says hi. Everyone took a double-take and told the toddler to explain. So he did:

There’s a belief that those who are really young and really old (so babies and senior citizens) can see into the paranormal world since they still have a close relationship with it. So the toddler says that he saw R’s mom in her funeral attire, looking the same as she did when she was healthy. R was taken aback by it and didn’t know what to say. I don’t think anyone did.

My mom believes this story wholeheartedly. She’s told it to me several times and so has my father and brother, yet I don’t remember it. Which is odd, because I was the toddler who saw her. I served as the medium for which she could connect to her son, who she could see was still mourning for her. And the fact that although I could barely articulate words, I was able to describe her perfectly is creepy.

Ouija Board

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Vermont
Performance Date: 4/24/18
Primary Language: English

When my friend Z was 13, she asked for a Ouija board for Christmas. An odd request, but her parents didn’t really believe in those sort of things so they got her one. Z had always used the Ouija board as a joke with her friends whenever they had sleepovers. All day they messed around, making up gibberish and pretending a “spirit” was talking to them. The family had a big laugh and when night fell everyone went to sleep.

That is except for Z. When she went to bed that night, she couldn’t fall asleep because when she got into bed there was a huge weight put on her legs, like someone was sitting on them. Once Z realized what was going on, she got out of bed, ran to her parents’ room frightened for her life. Her parents subsequently threw away the Ouija Board and that was the end of that.

Z told me that she stopped using Ouija Boards ever since because of the unforeseen consequences that it had. The Ouija Board was used by the Occult to speak to spirits who had passed on, and Z saw herself as disrespecting that mode of communication. The testy thing about Ouija Boards is that once it is used, any spirit can pass through. It’s like trying to open a door to a closet full of balloons just to grab the purple ones. It’s virtually impossible to do that.

When Z told me her experience with Ouija Boards, I actually believed her and never want to go near a Ouija Board. I’ve known for her for a bit and she’s a pretty rational individual. So if she was terrified by something she thought was a ghost, well then it probably was a ghost.

Dead Man’s Trail/Thief’s River Falls

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: St. Paul, Minnesota
Performance Date: 4/23/18
Primary Language: English

Many years ago, a young Chippewa warrior was wanted for murder. He was exiled from his tribe and took up residency in the surrounding forest. One day, a young Chippewa mother was walking in the forest, carrying her baby, when the man appeared. The woman began to run and he followed suit. As the woman ran, she realized that carrying her child was slowing her down. She stopped by bend in the river and placed her baby nearby so that she could escape, vowing to return for her child. Once she had successfully escaped the warrior, she returned for her child, but found that the baby was gone, swept away by the river. 

She cursed the river, calling it “Thief’s River,” for it had stolen her child from her. She states that some even claim to hear the mother’s cries in the sound of the river and that there have been reports of hikers seeing a young Indian woman in the woods, walking along the river, in desperate search of her baby.

This story was related to me by my friend K, who has lived her entire life in Minnesota, where the Thief’s River is located. She and her family often go camping up near the river and have visited it many times. She remembers first learning the story when she stopped by the Visitor’s Center. One of the employees was giving a presentation on the Chippewa tribe and included this story as part of it. K likes the story, although she admits it is quite sad. I saw it as the ongoing hardship of motherhood, and how in nature survival of the fittest was a harsh reality for Native Americans back then. That’s why her ghost was reported near the river, because it would be a constant reminder for those alive not to do the same mistake she did.

The Barrel Maker

Nationality: American
Age: 57
Occupation: Real Estate Agent
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/24/18
Primary Language: English

This story is central to my own background. I asked my dad about this story recently. It’s one that always comes up at any Jewish family gathering. He told me that his dad (my grandpa) told him, and that my grandpa’s dad told him this story. In Minsk, Russia, our family was very orthodox Jewish. It was around the turn of the century when this story occurred. This story is a long running one too because my family has always been taught to have a firm handshake, also known as “Levine Hand Strength.” My great-great grandpa was coming from work in Russia one day and a Russian Cossack soldier, typically known to be anti-Semitic, stopped him. After stopping him, he yanked his beard very hard and called him a Jewish slur. Apparently, my great-great grandpa was a prideful man who admitted humility, so his way of showing this, he thanked the Cossack and put his hand out to shake. According to my dad’s grandpa, the barrel maker crushed the Cossack’s hand and blood came out of the finger tips. My dad likes sharing this story because it’s something that helps him reconnect to his heritage and I feel the same way whenever I hear this story at a family gathering. It’s also important to our Jewish background and to remember not let people be bigoted towards a specific group of people. We also reflect on this story of how lucky we are to have gotten out of Russia during this time because if we had stayed, we would’ve endured the Holocaust and other acts against Jews. My dad still doesn’t know if it’s a true story but it’s still a powerful one to tell.

The Game

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Writer/Producer
Residence: Thousand Oaks, CA
Performance Date: 4/11/18
Primary Language: English

This informant explained a game that she and her family do around the Oscar’s Awards season. “It’s this thing in my family called ‘the game,’ it was started by my godfather and mom and dad.” The informant explained that basically you lay out a certain number of movies and to decide which one you are going to watch you play this game.  It requires a coin and once you have the coin in your hand and you say, “If you choose it you are not eliminated,” and you keep going down until you have an order to pick the movie.  And then you pick in order which movie you don’t want to see.  After that, then it’s the most democratic way to pick a movie. This one is very specific to the informant’s family since the informant’s father is in the Academy and they get the movie screeners for all the films that have come out in the past year and have to watch them and vote for the nominees. The key thing that the informant noted is that everyone eliminates one movie per round so that by the end, it’s a movie that no one DOESN’T want to see. The joke is kind of that no one ends 100% with what they wanted, but no one can complain because they could’ve taken the movie out. The informant mentioned that she hopes to continue this game and that hopefully she’ll have an Academy Award one day so she can continue to get the movies. She does feel that the game is a really long process and at times, tedious, “so it’s annoying sometimes, but it brings us together,” the informant said with a smile on her face. If I were the informant, I’d be happy about playing this game since I love movies, and I think it’s a fun family tradition that’s very unique to them.