Tag Archives: grief

Haunted House in New Orleans

Text:

Interviewee: “My mom has a friend who lives in, supposedly, a haunted house in New Orleans, and her grandmother had just died when she was taking a shower, and you know, in the shower, like, when the mist gets fogged up, and you can write stuff? She wrote something like, “I am here.”

“This is your mom’s friend who has a house in New Orleans?”

Interviewee: “Yes. Her mom had just passed. “

“Was she scared?”

Interviewee: “Yeah, she said she jumped out of the shower and ran out of the house.”

“Why would her mom do that?”

Interviewee: “I don’t know.”

Context:

This story comes from a friend’s account of a family friend who lives in a haunted home in New Orleans, a city known for its strong cultural associations with ghosts and the supernatural. The experience is tied to a moment of recent loss, with the woman’s mother having just passed away, which may influence how the event is interpreted. The setting of a “haunted house” adds to the way the experience is understood.

Analysis:

This is an example of a legend within belief-based folklore, especially tied to ghost stories and supernatural experiences. The message “I am here” suggests a spirit communicating through physical means, reflecting a magical superstition in which the spirit world can interact with the physical world.

The Dream After Death

“My brother was killed by me almost 20 years ago. And five days before he passed away, I had just moved back from Aruba and he had called me up and he’s like, hey, what are you doing?

It’s my birthday. And I’m like, I’m just. I don’t know, it’s my birthday, let’s hang out. So we hung out and we had a great time. And five days later I was sleeping and all of a sudden I woke up and I was like I couldn’t figure out why I, like, woke up, like in, you know, like, why am I awake? And about 30 minutes later, I get a phone call, 4:00 in the morning, 4:30 in the morning.

And it was my brother calling me, saying that, you know, my brother was found dead and, and I was saying “no way” because I had just talked to him that night.

I was supposed to go down there for Thanksgiving to hang out with him, and I was moving that same weekend. So I was like, you know what? I really shouldn’t do that. I should just stick to packing my bags and, you know, stay focused and so let’s go out next weekend.

And we hung up. It’s 11:30 at night. And then of course, my brother calls me the next morning saying he passed and I was saying “no”, I just spoke to him, you know, I’m like, “no”.

I kept saying “no”. He’s like, yes. He’s kind of like, well, how. Anyways, he, you know. By the way, the cause of death is basically unknown. Okay. I believe his wife killed him, in my opinion.

Just from what I have gathered, he was trying to leave her, and she didn’t want to grant the divorce for almost a year.

Trying to leave her. Anyway, there was a lot of turmoil that went online.

So I was sleeping and I was trying to figure out, like, how can I honor my brother, right?

And. And I was very upset. And he came to visit me in this dream and he said, “you’re not gonna know what happened to me”.

And I was like, what? Why? He’s like, “they don’t have testing for it”. I’m like, okay. He’s like, “but I’m okay. And, you know, you need to basically let go so I can move on”.

I was like, oh, gosh, okay. And I woke up from that dream, and I was like, I felt better because I’m like, at least he came to visit me, you know.”

Their thoughts

The teller believes this was genuine communication from her brother after death, reinforced by the psychic’s confirmation later. She thinks her brother showed up so they can both move on to the next part of their journey; she felt like she did not need to think about how to honor him, and he could move on to the other side and rest in peace.

My thoughts

I found this story interesting because it blends her grief over her brother with her belief in the afterlife.  This story showed how ghost stories can offer comfort and a sense of closure. I was also moved by the fact that after this experience, she chose to meet with a psychic, and that the psychic was able to share details about her brother that felt very specific and personal. That seemed to reinforce her belief that the person she saw in her dream was actually her brother, beyond any doubt she might have had before.

At the same time, I found myself having questions that I didn’t ask during the interview. For example, I was wondering about the timing – was the dream before or after the funeral, and how soon after his death did it happen? I also wondered whether her brother appeared to other family members, especially since she mentioned that her mother and her sons have similar abilities.

I was also fascinated by the uncertainty around his cause of death. The idea that there was “no testing” for it, and that this detail was repeated both in the dream and by the psychic, adds another layer to the story. It creates a sense that some things remain unknowable through conventional means, which may be why the dream and the psychic experience carry so much meaning for her.

Borrowed Keys

Nationality: American/Mexican
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: West Covina, CA
Language: English/Spanish

TEXT: “When I was a lot younger, my grandfather passed away, and I was heartbroken. I tried not to remember him so I wouldn’t get sad and start crying, but when that wouldn’t work, my mom started a wholesome joke to keep his memory alive. Anytime someone would misplace something or lose it, she would say, “Abuelo probably borrowed it”. It was a little thing that meant a lot, since he would always misplace things or lose them and borrow other people’s instead. One morning, I was looking for my keys, since we needed to leave for a family dinner, and I couldn’t find them for the life of me. I looked all around my room and our house, but no luck. As I finished checking our kitchen and living room, I headed back up to my room in hopes of finding them, and there they were. My keys were sitting on my desk when I walked back in, and when I told my mom, she laughed and said, “Abuelo’s always around”.

CONTEXT: This short personal narrative describes the quiet impact of grief and the small, meaningful ways families keep loved ones present after they’ve passed. The narrator recalls the death of their grandfather during childhood and how that early loss brought emotional difficulty. In response, the narrator’s mother introduces a gentle family tradition: joking that “Abuelo probably borrowed it” whenever something goes missing. This phrase becomes a wholesome coping mechanism that transforms grief into connection.

ANALYSIS: This memorate serves as a wholesome example of how families create small traditions that keep the memory of loved ones alive. The informant’s family marked the moment of loss in a gentle way by saying something meaningful that offered a small comfort, “Abuelo probably borrowed it.” The missing keys provide a bit of mystery, but it’s less about animating the dead and more about how memory, love, and belief intersect and interact in daily life. The mom’s response is an indication of how this small ritual comforts the grieving family and allows the grandfather to still have a presence in the family narrative, even though he has passed.

La Llorona

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Language: English

Text:

“So one story that I’ve heard growing up a lot in my life is the legend of La Llorona. I first heard it as a very young child probably 5 or 6 years old. My parents, grandma and tias would tell me about her. It’s a story where a young woman had two children a little boy and little girl. She lived in a small town in Mexico- her name Maria. She was very gorgeous a town treasure and had a loving personality. She was a stay at home mom who worked really hard. She had a husband who was a soldier and he would come visit her when he wasn’t out working but one day she caught him cheating on her with another woman. This made her grow furious and jealous and out of pure disgust towards her husband she ended up taking her young children to the river and drowned them. After killing them she realized what she did and immediately got so heartbroken trying to resurrect them. After failed attempts she drowned herself hoping to be with her kids in heaven. However when she died God didn’t let her in. Because of what she did she was forced to wander the earth in search of her children’s souls and only then will she be let in. Little did she know her children’s souls were already in heaven. So she’s now doomed to walk the Earth grounds. She wanders around rivers and lakes late in the night. She screamed/cries out “Ohhh mis hijos!!” (Oh, my children) And when you hear her cry late at night you’re already doommed cause she’s nearby even if she seems further away. It’s said if she is to find you she will become enraged realizing you’re not her kids and drown you in the closest body of water. She’s genuinely search a cursed spirit filled with much despair, grief and anger. She’s known to appear with long dark hair and a dirty white long dress.”

Context:

The informant says that even though they personally don’t believe in it, they’ve heard stories of family members encountering it, making it somewhat believable. They find it fascinating and tragic and finds it to be a story that they would pass down to others, especially having grown up with it themselves.

Analysis:

This narrative represents a legend as it occurs in the real world with some possible truth to it. It represents a story of injustice, jealousy, and grief, causing this pain to be continuously passed down to other people. It suggests the theme of being careful when you go out at night or else something bad might happen to you, which is also probably why it is told to young children as to warn against them from going out to unsafe places. La Llorona represents a revenant, a spirit brought back from the dead for revenge, or as spirit with unfinished business. The story also represents a religious concentration as the reason why she cannot move on is because of God not letting her into heaven due to the consequence of suicide. This focuses on the idea of motherhood due to the guilt she feels for murdering her kids in rage and dealing with infidelity from her husband, showing an importance for family and social connections in society.

La Llorona

  1. Details
    1. Collected on 03/23/2024 
    2. Genre: Legend
    3. Language: English 
    4. Nationality: Mexican
    5. Relationship to Informant: Friend’s Father 
  2. Text
    1. Summary
      1. The informant’s mother told him a version of the La Llorona legend where there was a woman who lived her life in torment after her children fell into the river and died. 
    2. Direct transcription of folklore:
      1. “You are going into my memory banks here, but my mother used to tell us about this woman who was very afflicted because her children had drowned in the river. And you could hear her wailing ‘ah mis hijos’ – oh, my children. So, it was almost a tale my mom would tell us so not to do dangerous things because she would be forever depressed. It wasn’t so much that this was an evil person that did something bad because I think La Llorona – the original one – drowned her children. In the version my mom would tell us, the children fell into the river and drowned. So, she would wail forever for her children.”
  3. Context 
      1. The informant is the father of my friend. He grew up in a small town in Mexico. This story was told to the informant by his mother when he was a child. 
  4. Analysis 
      1. This oikotype of the La Llorona legend portrays the woman as a grieving mother who lost her children. This legend was told by a mother to her children to prevent them from risking their lives by doing dangerous things. This legend tells the children that if they aren’t careful, they can cause their mother to mourn for the rest of her life.