Episode 10 Transcript - Call Your Mom: Ghosts and the Paranormal with Dana Forrester of Lucky Monkey Tattoo and Crud
Episode. 10: Ghost Stories
Rachel: [00:00:00] The content of this podcast, Generation Mom, is for entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the host and their guests are their own and do not constitute professional advice. While we strive to provide accurate and up to date information, this podcast is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional, medical, financial, legal, or other advice.
Always seek the advice of a qualified professional with any questions you may have regarding your specific situation. Thanks for listening.
Dana: Around 3:00 AM Do you know how you just, I just woke up. I could tell somebody was watching me and I looked to the right and there is a boy, he's dressed in not closing clothing of our era, more of like the 18 hundreds. And he is monochrome. Um, so he looks like black and gray and his eyes are intent, but they weren't looking at me.
They were looking past me. And I freaked the hell out. Cause he was three [00:01:00] dimensional.
Rachel: Hello, and welcome to Generation Mom. I'm Rachel, the elder millennial who tries to stay grounded in all of the chaos of modern parenthood. I'm Pam, the Bloomer Mom, to my two co hosts and Nana to their kids. I've spent And I'm here to share my generational wisdom with a touch of tough love. And I'm Laurel, your Gen X voice of reason, stuck in the middle, ready to weigh in with unsugarcoated advice.
Join us as we tackle life's big questions across three generations, sharing laughs and insights along the way. This is Generation Mom.
Hello again, and welcome back to Generation Mom. I'm Rachel. I'm joined here with Laurel and Pam, and we're excited today because we have a very fun episode planned with our first [00:02:00] guest, or I guess she'll be our second guest by the time this airs, because we are interviewing some other folks. But. Uh, our cousin, Dana, and my, Pam's niece, Dana, is joining us later, so we will give her an introduction once she gets here, but today we'll be sharing some family ghost stories and paranormal things that have happened to us, some woo woo things, uh, so I'm excited for this topic because it's one of my favorites.
topics and just a fun one as we get towards Halloween. So I'm excited. So Pam and Laurel, where do you guys fall like on, on the scale of, of WUWU? What, what do you believe in?
Pam: Uh, I am a believer. Um, I have had enough, uh, [00:03:00] experiences, uh, in my life to really think that there's something, I don't know what, uh, But that there's, there's something paranormal out there. Um, I, I don't know what I would call it. I mean, I'm not a, you know, I'm not a Wiccan or anything, but I do think there's something.
I, I just. You know, there's just been too many things that, you know, can't all be coincidences.
Rachel: Yeah.
Pam: So that's where I stand.
Rachel: How about you, Laurel?
Laurel: Well, I have to preface everything you're about to hear with, I don't believe in anything. So, you know, I have a very hard time reconciling what you're going to hear today, Which are all true stories, and I think pretty much all of them have witnesses.
So, you know, it's hard for me to, [00:04:00] you know, reconcile that with the fact that I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in anything. So, you know, I can't explain it. It's unexplainable. The truth is out there. But wait, what about you? Yeah.
Rachel: Oh, what about me? Oh, I believe in it. I'm a believer. I, I mean, and I think I fall like towards the Like if it's a scale of one to 10, I'm probably like an 8.
5 on the woo woo scale. Like I've taken workshops on mediumship and, um, like I've had experiences that you'll hear about with ghosts. I've just had like a lot of synchronicities happen in life. Like I think I, I totally believe there's something bigger than us out there. Like, cause I also believe in.
reincarnation, or at least that there's something else after we, I believe that we don't just die and that's it. I think there's something else because [00:05:00] we're all energy. So I don't know, I don't know what it is, but I'm really excited to share some of these stories. today. I wanted to just talk a little bit about our, our history of, of the woo in our family.
And the first story I heard was about my great grandmother. So my mom's. Mary Bernor, right? And she's mom's mom's mom, mom's mom's mom, your grandmother, uh, the story I always heard, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that she was born, what's called an end call. So it's like when you're born and you're amniotic sack is still intact around you.
And there's like an old wives tale that if you're born that way, you, uh, you are more psychic, like you're born with psychic gifts. And so I grew up hearing like that she was very psychic and she could make [00:06:00] predictions that came true. So I don't know, mom, if you have any stories you want to share about her.
Pam: Well, I, I have a couple. What she was born with was she was born with a veil over her face, which was, it was the amniotic sac, but they had to remove it from her face. And so, yeah, there was a, I don't know what old wives tale or what, that people who are born with that are, are more intuitive and psychic.
And my mother always talked about how she was always afraid when her mother would make a prediction, because it would usually come true. And a couple things that, uh, she did that, you know, We're sort of creepy was, um, my mother's sister was getting ready for a date one night and [00:07:00] her, uh, their mother walked in and said, um, I don't know why you're getting all gussied up because he's not coming.
And she said, well, what do you mean? Did you hear something from him? She says, no, I just know he's not coming. He's not going to come. You don't have to get all gussied up. And he didn't come. So, and you know, my mother said, we don't have any idea how she, knew that. I mean, it wasn't the days of text where she could be, you know, texting back and forth with somebody.
Um, and then the, I think the one that was the most creepy for me was that my mother had a cousin who played the piano really beautifully. And my grandmother said one day, just, you know, out of the blue, it's really a shame that Danny isn't going to be able to play the piano anymore. [00:08:00] And they said, what do you mean?
He plays really well. Yeah, well, that's going to change. And the next week there was an accident at his job and he lost a hand. So that was always, I say, I get goosebumps even now when I think about it, but that was probably one of the most creepy ones. And then, uh, when my mother got married to my dad and, and, um, they didn't tell anybody that they were married.
Um, my grandmother somehow knew, and she started asking questions of the people around them. And, um, But she, you know, they didn't say a word. They never said a word to anybody and she found out. So I don't know, it was, it was creepy, you know, to hear these stories, especially as a, as a [00:09:00] kid. Um, my mother was a little bit intuitive.
Um, although I think her personality sort of got in the way of it a little bit, but, um, she also could make some predictions, you know, that would, you That would come true. Um, so yeah, that, that's the start of the story anyway.
Rachel: So you said grandma was a little bit intuitive. I think there was a story about.
About your sister and the plane crash. Did you want to share that one too?
Pam: Okay. Well, this is actually documented in a paper in Michigan, in the, um, Saginaw and Midland papers in 1958. My parents were in New York with my sister. It was April, 1958. And they were, uh, they were, um, [00:10:00] there to, uh, do some shopping.
My sister was getting married and they were buying some clothes and I, her wedding dress, if I remember correctly. So they were coming back to Michigan from New York. And in those days you had to fly from New York to Detroit, to Flint, the Tri City airport, which is where they would have gotten off. the plane went on to Chicago.
So they were in New York. They were at, uh, there were two airports at that time. There was LaGuardia and there was, um, I can't remember the name of the other one, I'd have to look it up. So anyway, so they were at, uh, they were at whatever the J, JFK, I think was. And it [00:11:00] was pouring down rain. And in those days, you used to have to walk outside to the airplane, and there would be a staircase, you know, on the side of the airplane, and you could walk outside.
You could climb up the staircase. So when you would walk outside, there could often be more than one plane. So they were standing there and it was a big confusion because there were all these people and it was really crowded and rain, it was just pouring, pouring down rain and someone, a man came up to my mother, he was dressed in a trench coat and a hat.
So my mother said she couldn't really see his face, but he grabbed her by the arm and he said, don't get on that plane, get on that plane over there. So they walked over to the [00:12:00] plane and they said, no, you're not scheduled on this plane. And so they said, well, you know, the official told us to come over here and well, no, this isn't the right plane.
And your plane Has been moved to LaGuardia airport. So you've got to get on a transport and go to LaGuardia. So they go to LaGuardia and by the time they get there. The plane is gone. So they scrambled around and I don't know, they, they finally found another, I think the last plane that was going out, that was going to Detroit.
It would take them as far as Detroit. So they flew to Detroit, they got off the plane and they had to take a taxi. A hundred miles. Oh God. Back to Bay City. So in the meantime, the plane that they were supposed to be on went to, [00:13:00] uh, went to Detroit. And in Detroit, one of the stewardesses got sick and she got off the plane.
And then, um, the plane traveled onto Flint. It it. It, uh, landed successfully in Flint, and then there was a 15 minute flight from Flint to Tri City Airport, which is where they would get off for Bay City. And on approach to Tri City Airport, The plane crashed. There was a huge snowstorm. The plane got ice on it and it did something to its stabilization or something and it took a nose dive right into a farmer's field and My parents were on the list that they were on that plane, and my sister, and so as they were driving [00:14:00] back to Bay City in this cab, over the radio, there comes this report that this plane, Flight 67, out of Tri City Airport, or into Tri City Airport, has crashed, and all 47 people on the plane were killed.
So the guy who was driving them and the cab driver, he, he got really upset and he said, Oh my God, that's terrible. He said, I think my doctor was on that plane. And my father said, well, who's your doctor? And he said, Dr. Horowitz. And he said, well, Man, I'm Dr. Horowitz. And so the cab driver got on the radio and he radioed back to his dispatch that he had my dad and mother and sister in the car.
So, you know, I don't know. I mean, if that, who was the man in the trench coat who came up to my mother specifically and grabbed her by the [00:15:00] arm and told her, don't get on that plane over there. Get on that plane which delay it wasn't because that plane was gonna crash That it delayed them so that they didn't make it onto the transport that was supposed to take them to the airport that would get them to their plane on time, to the plane that did crash on time.
So, my mother always said that that person was like her guardian angel. But, her brother got her heart going again, and she was transferred from the ship to the heart hospital in, in Florida. In Miami, yeah. She had to have, uh, the same operation actually that Rachel ended up having, um, to replace her valve, her um, aortic valve.
And my sister and I went up [00:16:00] the day of her operation and we wanted to see her before she went to surgery and we went running, you know, into the room and she said, Oh, girls, don't be, don't be worried about me. I'm going to be just fine. And I said, Mom, that sounds, feels so great that, you know, you're so positive about this.
And she said, no, no, no. He came and saw me again. The guy in the trench coat, he was here. He told me I'd be fine. And she was fine. She lived for 10 more years. And, um, that's another goosebump story. Um, so yeah, that's, So that's just some of them.
Rachel: I've always thought you and Laurel are a little bit, you have a connection, like kind of a psychic connection.
Cause you always sort of had this thing about like where the one person's [00:17:00] thinking about calling the other and then the other person calls them. Yeah, well,
Pam: that used to happen a lot. Um, especially when she was in college. Um, you know, I'd get this feeling like she needed to talk to me. And, um, sometimes, you know, I would be just about to dial her number and she'd call me.
And the same for her. So yeah, and, and even, I don't know, even in, um, even in high school sometimes I remember that happening. Um, yeah, there's some connection there. I'm not exactly sure what it is. But we'll somehow read each other, you know, and she'll sometimes, you know, call me and say, okay, what's up? Or what's wrong?
Or, you know, and I'll do the same thing. Um, without even having communicated. Of course, now we have text and all that. So I've
Laurel: changed a bit since texting.[00:18:00]
Pam: But can I tell the stories about you, Rachel? Sure. Okay. Well, when Rachel, um, from the time she was really little, by the, you know, the time she could communicate, she was always concerned about fires. And when she was about two and a half, She got the family together and she wanted to make an escape route so that in case there was a fire, we would know how to get out of the house.
And, um, so we always thought this was kind of strange, you know, because she was so young. And then from the time she was two, she was, was wanting to buy bride magazine. And every time I went to the store, I had to buy a bride magazine for her. And she used to talk about her [00:19:00] wedding and what her wedding was going to be like.
And she would make all these plans. And then she'd talk about, well, my next wedding is going to be like this and my next wedding will be like this. So we were always really, just really, you know, baffled at what we were Why the weddings and why the fire? And so one day she, she was maybe about three or something.
And she told me that she was very afraid. to get married because something bad would happen, was going to happen, that there was going to be a fire. So the, and that didn't happen. She got married and that didn't happen. There was no fire. But I, I've always felt like she had a previous life. Where there was a [00:20:00] fire there was a fire around her wedding and that she was left with that now as she got older that Faded she stopped talking about it But I don't know we it always really kind of creeped us out But you know, I there's got to be something to it because what two year old is Wants to make a, uh, fire plan, a fire plan, an escape plan for fire.
And she wanted, you know, she had us buy one of those ladders that you could put out the, the window. And I mean, how did she even know about that stuff? Yeah.
Rachel: I, I remember being really afraid of fires. You hear all these stories about kids remembering past lives and, um, there's a documentary It's called Surviving Death and they have a whole episode.
It's like a limited series and they have a whole episode about these kids who like remember [00:21:00] their past lives. One kid like remembered his past life as an actor and like in the episode they end up like tracking down the actor's family, but the kid's like older by the time he meets them. It doesn't really remember as much.
But he knew like all these crazy details about this very obscure like background actor. So who knows? Yeah, I think it's. It's interesting, like the, the past life thing. And then I know we, we recently met with a medium who I introduced you to, but I want to share about my experience with her. Cause I feel like, like, I don't have that very many people who've passed on in my life.
Like I have grandparents who have passed away and, you know, Margo, but this was before Margo had passed away. And a friend of mine was having a, um, she was having a, like a party, a gathering, and she had this medium come to do a group reading at the party. And so I had never. I've never [00:22:00] done anything with a medium before, I had never, like, experienced it, I, at that time I thought it was a little, like, Okay, they just ask you a lot of questions and they're really good guessers or whatever so I'm sitting in this group of group of people and she's this she's a beautiful woman tall blonde and So she starts doing her thing and she's wearing like a necklace and she's like It was sort of like, it wasn't a turquoise necklace, but it was sort of that style.
And our grandmother loves turquoise and would wear like a lot of big jewelry, like the big turquoise jewelry. And so she's, At first she's like, yeah, I have someone here. Like she's wearing a necklace. It's sort of like this. And she, and I'm like, oh, well, I mean, I guess I don't say anything. Cause I'm like, I mean, that could be a lot of people, whatever.
So then she's like, and she's with a man and there are these dogs around them. Like these little [00:23:00] small white dogs running around and are my grandparents, Pam's parents. They had. These little Bichon Frises. One of them was named P. D. and one was R. E., which are my initials and my mom's initials. And so again, I don't say anything, because I'm like, well, I mean, that could be them, but, I mean, it could be anybody.
And there's this other girl there, who's like, oh, well, my grandmother wore jewelry like that and had a little white dog. So maybe it's her, I don't know. So they start talking, and she's like, You know, they have these other dogs with them. They're bigger, bigger dogs. And they're like Great Danes, but they're not grey.
They're this color. And she points at my friend's dog. Who's like a tan brownish tan color. And I'm sitting there. I'm like, I mean, they had great Danes, but I didn't know what color they were. And I think at one point I said like, well, they could be [00:24:00] my, my grandparents. And she said, well, Was your grandfather tall?
And I laughed and I said, no, he's not tall. But I'm sure if he gets to choose how he wants to look, he probably would appear as very tall. So I don't really think much of it. And I mean, I, you know, it was interesting, but I didn't, like, I didn't speak up a lot. And so I didn't give her a lot of, you know, information.
But one thing she said, you know, when I said it could be my grandparents, she says, well, your grandfather keeps going, Where's the boy? Where's the boy? And I said, does he mean, does he mean my nephew? Like, does he, she's like, do you have a son? I said, no. And I had just had my daughter like, no, I don't have a son.
And she's like, well, I don't think he means your nephew, but he just keeps saying, where's the boy? Where's the boy? And. I, a couple years later, I got pregnant and I had a boy, so I'm always wondering, like, was that [00:25:00] like, him wondering, like, where's the boy? Um, and so, but I texted mom on my way home and I said, you know, we had, we had this thing with a medium and what color were your dogs growing up?
And she said, oh, they were great Danes, but they weren't gray, they were tan. And so, like, to me, I mean, I had given this woman nothing, and I mean, there's, was just enough there that I, it made me wonder, like, could it really be them? And then I went back to see her, I did a, I did a reading on my own, and during that reading, Um, she, she said, I, I have a man coming through.
I think it's a grandfather, which again, like you could easily guess my age, probably don't have living, living parents, but she starts describing him. It sounds like my dad's dad. Um, and again, I'm just sort of like saying, you know, I'm not giving her a whole lot, I'm [00:26:00] seeing what comes out. And she's like, he keeps on like waving his arms and, You know, sort of like, sort of like he's conducting music and our grandfather would always, he loved music.
He was on the radio as a commentator and he used to, he always had, he had a little baton and he would stand in front of his radio and listen to classical music and like wave his baton around. And so she said that I'm like, where, like, that's so specific. And that's not something that like, you could really, you know, I don't feel like that's something a lot of people do, I, I don't feel, and I forget what else she said.
She said a couple other things that sort of confirmed for me that it was him. Um, so, after my aunt passed away, I wanted to, to talk to her and see, you know, we'll, [00:27:00] we'll, Aunt Margo come through. And I thought it was interesting because it wasn't Margo who came through. It was a very unexpected person from mom's past.
So I don't know if you want to talk about what that experience was like for you.
Pam: Well, well, let me back up a little bit because, um, I think the first thing that happened was that my sister Margo's best friend had called me and she said Pam I have something really unbelievable to tell you and I said okay and she said um alright are you sitting down and I said yes and she said okay so she had gone to see you.
because her oldest son had [00:28:00] tragically died suddenly of a heart attack and she wanted to see if she could communicate with him. So there, she's in this session and the medium says to her, okay, I have somebody here with the name. It starts with M. Well, her son's name was Michael. So she says, Oh, it's Michael.
And she says, no, it's not Michael. This is not a man. This is a woman. And she's trying to get my attention. And she wants to talk to somebody called Pam. And she keeps saying, I need to talk to Pam. I need to talk to Pam. So the medium said to her, do you know anybody by the name of Pam who knows someone who's called Pam?
Name starts with M. So Maureen says, well, yeah, I have a friend, Margo, who, you know, who passed recently, [00:29:00] and the woman says, yeah, that's it, I think, Margo, Margo. She's shaking her head, yes. And so Maureen said, well, what is the message that she wants to give to Pam? Well, during that time, I had had a bad mammogram, and I had to go in and And have biopsy done of both breasts and I was extremely nervous about it and worried.
Because we have a lot of cancer, some breast cancer, other kind of cancers in our family. In fact, my sister died of cancer. So, you know, cancer is a scary word for all of us. And, um, So the medium said to her, well, Margo wants Pam to know that everything is going to be fine, that her test is going to be [00:30:00] negative.
She does not. There's nothing there. It's fine. She's going to be just fine. So Maureen called me to tell me that. And that, I mean, I, the woman doesn't even know me. I wasn't even a topic of conversation. So how could she just pick that out of the air? And Maureen lives in Florida. She doesn't live here. She lives in Florida, so it's not like we see each other and talk to each other every day.
We don't.
Rachel: No. Well, I mean, how could she have even known Maureen knows you? Maureen's not on social media, like No. That would be a weird thing to say. And you know, Maureen
Pam: was kind of pissed because she wanted to talk to Michael. You know, here's Margo coming through. I know. So that's, that's right.
Rachel: So I'm so excited today because we are joined [00:31:00] by my cousin, Laurel's cousin, Pam's niece, Dana Forrester.
Dana is not only related to us, but she's also an award winning rocker and business owner. She owns The world famous lucky monkey tattoo and an Ann Arbor along with ritual body art, electric superstition, and lovely monkey tattoo. And she plays bass and rock bands, crud and true devil. Is there anything else I missed?
No, I'm really fast. Nailed it. So we're so excited and uh, Dana is definitely, um, also, well, I asked Pam and Laurel this, so I will ask you where do you think you fall on the woowoo scale of, of belief in the paranormal?
Dana: I'm pretty far up there in the. A 9 out of 10 or a 10 out of 10, [00:32:00] but you know, as we'll discover, I've had a lot of experiences that validate that.
Rachel: So we were just talking about mediums, so maybe we'll start there. You
Dana: know, since, you know, I'm sure your listeners know about Margo, my mother, Pam's sister, your aunt, and how we were raised. All very close to her and she was the matriarch of the family. So her loss Was and still is felt very very deeply and I think independently We along with her friends maureen and actually i've not heard maureen's reading So I don't know, you know what the medium said are looking for answers.
And so it's been about four years since her death and I had one reading by medium that was just totally not, you know, you know, when you get a reading and you're just like they're grasping at straws and you're trying to help them, but this was really different. I was at an event for a friend of mine and the scale that I'm an acquaintance with, we ended up sitting at a table.
And just, we had never talked. She [00:33:00] knows very little about my mother. And she said to me, Dana, I don't know. Oh, we were, the event that we were at the venue, I made some crack, like this place looks haunted. And she goes, you know, I just had a really, um, item. reading from a medium and she knew things nobody else could know.
And I'm like, really? She's like, yeah, I was dumbstruck. So I asked for her name and number and called her. Turns out this medium is dying of cancer. So she feels like she is, she has stage four breast cancer. and she feels she's closer to the other side. So she started off the reading. So what was interesting was James and I were sitting on our boat out in the middle of, um, Whitmore Lake, just the two of us.
And we didn't tell the medium about that. And it was super quiet, but she started talking about my sister, my sister's health. She was worried about my sister's health. But she had a shield of protection around her, [00:34:00] and so I've reconciled with my sister Robin recently, and I'm just thinking, well, her health is fine, and I thought, oh god, here we go, another, another fake.
But then as time went on, I realized she was talking about Pam, her sister, and how she's stuck around after she died, because she was really, really worried about her. But Pam, she has a shield of protection around you, um, so that was,
Laurel: Kind of a message that Maureen got too. It is so good
Dana: because I have not talked to Maureen about this.
And then, um, I made some notes, so I'm going to just kind of review them because I want to make sure, um, we talked about it. But there were things that there's There was no way she would know this. Only my mom would know. And so if, if you know me when I'm, I go swimming in November and the Margo was telling the medium how, uh, she wished if she had been more like me, always the first to jump in the water, no [00:35:00] matter how cold, um, was greeted by her parents on the other side.
They looked really young. Um, The medium kept saying how my mom looked like Grace Kelly. And I thought that was pretty spot on because, you know, I don't have any, you know, I've heard that spirits on the side look like they're younger selves or those selves they want to be. You know, she mentioned her classiness.
Um, we talked about her passing. She passed in her home, surrounded by love, but there were certain specific things that are too private to share. Of course. But there was no way that this medium would have known this very specific stuff. So I started crying spontaneously. Um, she knew that she used to take me shopping and that I hated it.
My mom always tried to dress me up like a little China doll. And you know me, I was a punk, I am and was, I'm an old time rocker now, goth. And, um, you know, she wishes she had allowed me to [00:36:00] be. More like, you know, who I was, she, she regretted that she didn't allow me to be who, you know, I was. And then what was really funny too was, um, she mentioned my brother who she said he's coasting, but that's okay.
I don't know if you guys know this, but our nickname for my brother's cruise and James, I mean, um, Margo knew this, her, our last trip together, we were on a cruise. And we used to joke because we love my brother, but he was, he's kind of more relaxed in real life. And you know, . But in on the cruise, whenever we're on a trip with him, he's super busy.
So he had like an hour, hour by hour itinerary on the cruise ship. You know, he is very busy, so we call him cruise ship. Jeffrey and mom knew this, so the medium was like coastal coasting. Something about your brother, coastal coasting. [00:37:00] She wants to talk about him and she wants to know that that's okay. And he's doing this and it's kind of like, you know, he is just doing a lot of traveling and, um, she was okay with that, but yeah, it was really, really remarkable.
Rachel: I had a medium that I really had good experiences with. She probably not as powerful as the one you saw, but I thought, well, it's been a few months since Margo's passing. I should, you know, set up an appointment for her with mom. So it was me and Laurel and mom. And I think we were all frustrated because Margo didn't really come through in this reading.
Instead who came through was an old boyfriend of mom's who I didn't even know had passed. So I thought that was kind of. That's wild. Uncanny. It
Dana: was Marshall. It was Marshall. Oh, you're kidding. What? No. Did you feel like it was him? [00:38:00] Did you? Yeah.
Pam: Yeah. I didn't know who it was in the beginning. She kept saying there's a young kid here.
Well,
Laurel: first she was trying to tell us that our dad had passed. And I was like, no. No. Yeah.
Pam: And so, um, he really wants, he really wanted to talk to me. And, so, I'm, I just, I didn't know who it was. And then finally she, I forget what she said.
Rachel: She said, she said, your parents are here. And it seems like they know him very well.
And
Pam: he knows them. And something about he wanted me to know that he liked me a lot better than I thought he did.
Um. So, that was a weird experience. I mean, you know, because of anybody I would, I haven't seen him in, I don't know, 50 some years [00:39:00] at least. And it wasn't like
Dana: he was the love of your life, you know, other than Sumner. No! It wasn't like great love. But apparently you were very important to him that he had to come from the other side.
That's right! Yes!
Pam: But he wanted, you know, me to know that he was there with my parents and Margo. Oh wow. And he completely took over the whole thing. Yeah. The psychic said, or the medium said, Yeah, Margo's waiting here. But I never really
Laurel: did get to talk to her. Okay, but that was after she told us 400 times that there were like a line of men waiting to talk to us.
And she said, is there anyone you wanted to talk to? And we told her who that was. So, I was not as impressed with the medium as they were.
Rachel: A little bit like She threw that in to make us feel better at the end. [00:40:00]
Dana: That's wild.
Rachel: So we all really bonded on a trip to Savannah and Margo was alive then. This was many, many years ago.
This was many, many years ago. It was the four of us and Margo. We stayed in a haunted hotel. We did not know it was haunted at the time.
Laurel: Oh, Savannah's like one of those old, very haunted cities. Well,
Pam: they have a tour. They actually have a tour that'll take you to all the haunted places and the, um, the cemetery and stuff.
Rachel: Yeah, Savannah is one of the only cities that did not get burned down in the Civil War, and is known as one of the most haunted cities. Like right up there with New Orleans. And so, I mean, I guess, I think anywhere you go in Savannah is probably haunted , but we stayed in this really lovely hotel called the [00:41:00] East Bay Inn.
Um, oh wow. I
Laurel: can't believe you remember what it was called.
Rachel: I don't have, well, I did a little, I did a little research. . Um. And I'll, I'll tell our experience and then Dana can tell their experience cause we were staying on different floors. Um, The three of us
Laurel: were staying together and Dana and Margo were staying.
Rachel: Yeah, Dana and Margo were staying together. And so we had this room and we had this, this door to our room that would keep opening and we would keep, I remember we would keep closing it and it would latch. And. If you didn't lock it, it would just open again. So, I mean, you know, at first we're like, God, this is just annoying.
This, this door keeps opening and closing. Then at night. We would sleep and it was so noisy. We kept hearing, well, our
Laurel: ceilings were really, really high.
Rachel: It wasn't
Laurel: like a normal, like a hotel room where it's normal height ceilings. They [00:42:00] were very, very high and they were like concrete or something.
Rachel: Yeah.
Laurel: And it sounded like bowling.
It sounded like someone was bowling above us, like a bowling alley was
Rachel: above us. Like this rolling sound across the ceiling, like all night long. Um, the other thing I remember that happened is we were going out to dinner and I, we had a safe in our room and I put everything in the safe and I closed the safe and I made sure it was locked because I'm OCD and I check and recheck things.
So this safe, the safe was locked, it was closed and locked and we went to dinner and when we came back, the safe door was wide open and everything was still in the safe. Nothing had been stolen, but the door was wide open. And then the other weird thing that happened, didn't you hear mom and I just like talking?
I was gonna say, I,
Laurel: you know, I don't know that this qualifies as paranormal, but I, I don't remember, I was in bed with one of you, and the other one was [00:43:00] me. Okay, I was in bed with you, you and I were sharing the bed, and mom was in the other bed, and I was sleeping, like, between you two, so like, You were on the outside end and I was on the inside end and the mom was on the other side and I woke up and you two were having a full on conversation and I thought, oh it must be time to get up.
And they just haven't woken me up yet. Like I thought you guys were getting ready to go out, you know, because we were getting up earlier. We were doing these tours and stuff. And so I got up and went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. And the two of you, and I checked the clock, it was the middle of the night.
And the two of you are laying in bed having a total full on conversation with each other. I have
Rachel: no recollection of it. You told us about it in the morning. I just think it's so creepy. It was very weird. Was there, was there anything else that happened to us?
Laurel: That's what I remember about our rooms, all the noises.
So
Dana: mine, [00:44:00] interestingly enough, yeah, you guys went out to dinner and I had a horrible, horrible cold, congested, everything. And I think you guys were going to the pink house for dinner or something. Yeah. And mom brought you back. Yeah. And mom was mad because I just felt like crap and it was pouring, pouring rain.
So I decided to stay home while you guys went out or stay at the room. And I think we were on the third floor. We were, we were not on a, like, We're on an upper floor. And so I'm lying in bed and I can't sleep and the rain is pouring and I'm all alone. And I kept hearing our door open and close, open and close.
I kept in footsteps. So I would get up because where the bed was in the hotel room, you couldn't see the door and I'm like, what is going on here? Like, and I'd open the door and I looked down the hall and nobody was there. I'd lie back in bed and it just sounded like somebody was opening and closing this door.
Like, you could hear the click of a lock and stuff. So, needless to say, I didn't get any sleep. Um, and then the next day when we were [00:45:00] checking out, um, there was like a hotel bar and then we were waiting, I think, for Mom and Pam to check us out the room. And I heard some other guests talking about this place being haunted to the staff.
And the staff's like, yeah, it is haunted. And then I'm like, okay. Wait a minute. So I told him about like, you guys had heard like bowling or bouncing balls and the doors opening, and then my audio haunting where I was just hearing this door open and close and footsteps. And so apparently a young boy, of course it was our room, uh, fell out of the window of our room and haunts the place and plays ball up and down the hallways and opens the door.
So the staff validated that this was, this was a known ghost that we all
Rachel: Charlie, Charlie the ghost at the East Bay Inn. And yeah, I mean he didn't seem malicious at all. He just likes to get into your safe
Dana: and close your door. He's mischievous. He's [00:46:00] a mischievous ghost. It's like, you know, do you know what year this was?
Cause like we weren't, did we even have cell phones? Like we weren't, we didn't go in there looking or going about any ghost stuff. I mean, we went for the, uh, midnight in the garden of good evil home tours. That's why we're in, you know, to see the historic homes. And we knew it was kind of ghosty, but we never, we didn't do any research and we, it really wasn't on our radar.
So that's why I think, you know, this is, we're more of pure experiences.
Rachel: Yeah, because we didn't really have like, I think when we got home, maybe I like looked it up online, but it wasn't the time of smartphones really, or at least not like the kind where you just have, you know, wifi access right there. And we weren't, I had, I remember I had like a real camera
Laurel: and that's
Rachel: just
Laurel: before I got married.
Yeah. So it was a while back.
Rachel: It was. Yeah. So you have like those, those. [00:47:00] experiences then. I had a similar thing happen. I stayed on the Queen Mary in Long Beach and so the Queen Mary is like a, It's basically like the Titanic, like it's a huge old, old cruise ship. And it's just docked now in Long Beach and it's a hotel.
And I was staying there for a conference. The conference was in like a conference center. And for some reason, this was like the host hotel for the conference. And so I'm staying in a room. It's like a. It's, it's a state room, like, and it's not, it was not first class , but I wasn't in steerage either. I was sort of like the middle class cabin.
But I remember going into the room and the room was really hot and there was a porthole window, and so I was trying to get the porthole window open and I mean, this thing was. I mean, it felt like it was just bolted shut. Like there was no [00:48:00] opening this. I didn't loosen it, trying to open it. Like it was just.
Like I tried to open it. I didn't try super hard and then I was like, I guess you just can't open the porthole windows. So I go and I take a shower and when I come out of the shower into the room the porthole window is wide open.
Dana: Yeah,
Rachel: and I said out loud. I was like, I'm here for work. Please. Don't bother me Me I need sleep Like I need to sleep.
Please. Don't mess with me. I was like, thank you for opening the window But please don't bother me And I was left alone the rest of the trip, but I remember it like that was something I was like that thing was so sealed shut Yeah, for it to be just wide open. It was kind of, it was very creepy.
Dana: Did you already talk about this before I came on about Laurel?
Didn't you have your jewelry smashed in [00:49:00] Charleston or something? Yes,
Laurel: I stayed in Charleston, which is another very haunted city in the south. And, um, we went, my husband and I, Like, right. I, we may, we may, I don't think we were even married yet, but we may have been dating, uh, we went to Charleston for a wedding and we stayed in this hotel and I did not take the time to figure out what hotel it was, but, um, it, uh, you know, it was where the wedding was being held.
And first we had, we were there for maybe two nights, I think. And, um, we had our TV kept turning on all night long and the remote was like on the bed stand. You know, it wasn't like we were rolling on it or anything. And, you know, so we'd turn it off and go back to sleep and, like, it would turn back on. And this kept happening repeatedly, all night long.
And then I had, um, like a bunch [00:50:00] of rings. And I had taken my rings off and put them on the, like, the desk in the, in the hotel room while I was sleeping. And when I woke up the next morning, all my rings were smashed. So they were like, it's so crazy, you know, circling around. They were like ovals. That's wild.
Rachel: And these weren't like flimsy rings. No,
Dana: they were Yeah, I always remember that story because I was so struck by that because I think you had to take them to a jewelry Jeweler to get them. Yeah,
Laurel: they're still like that. In fact, I was cleaning out the You know my never ending cleaning out my house. I was cleaning out one of my jewelry boxes and I found one of them And um, I still not sure where the other one is But you know, there were two or three rings that got smushed
Rachel: Wow, you could go back to the hotel and demand that the ghosts put them back[00:51:00]
Um, dana Do I remember, have you had haunting, like, your house being haunted stories, too? Yeah,
Dana: so I had a really bizarre experience, too, so about, um, it was pre pandemic and it just totally out of it, unexpected. I woke up in the middle of the night, I was sleeping, you know, my husband, you know, in our king size bed with our dogs.
Around 3:00 AM Do you know how you just, I just woke up. I could tell somebody was watching me and I looked to the right and there is a boy, he's dressed in not closing clothing of our era, more of like the 18 hundreds. And he is monochrome. Um, so he looks like black and gray and his eyes are intent, but they weren't looking at me.
They were looking past me. And I freaked the hell out. Cause he was three dimensional. And, um, I turned to my husband, you know, my [00:52:00] dogs who wake up, you know, y'all have dogs and pets, it's like, you know, they're watchdogs. They, you know, react, they're passed out. And I go, James. And I grab them, you know, and I kind of do a half scream to wake them up.
And then I look back and the boy is gone. And, you know, we've tried, we've talked to various people about what. You know, I even Googled, you know, did anyone die? buh. I couldn't find anything. There was a boy that died near us, but it wasn't the right era. It was the seventies. Um, and so kind of the, the, the conclusion I came to was, we're a house, a very loving house, and maybe he was feeling some love maternal vibes or was he a warning?
I don't know. We never made a connection and he never came back. But it was just, I've never seen anything like that. To see a ghost visually, and I was wide awake. I didn't sleep the rest of the night, I just stayed up. And, um, I was just like, I was just blown away. Never seen anything like that. [00:53:00] And no drugs in my mouth.
Like, no game of weed, no edibles. No alcohol. Just left the record state.
Laurel: How old is your house?
Dana: So my house isn't old. It was built in, um, 2001. What's so weird is I lived forever in a house from the 1920s in Ferndale. Yeah. We never had any incidents. I'm like, any house would be haunted, this one, would be because it was the oldest home in the neighborhood and it, it had a lot, it had vibes, but it, nothing ever happened.
But this was so weird. relatively new home, you know, for us. So it was, you know, 20 years old. But Whitmore Lake is a high activity. Uh, there was a lot of Native Americans here, although this boy did not look Native American. Maybe he was a settler. You know, I don't know. But we've had, we've had a lot of incidents here.
We've had, um, so we have a purple room, our purple [00:54:00] guest room. I've had, our brother in law Harry has stayed in there. And he's had, so we've had multiple incidents in this purple room that is our guest room. And he, so for an example, our, my brother in law Harry was staying there. And one night, the next morning, he goes, Dana, were you in my room last night?
I'm like, no. He's like, cause I heard this girl laughing. And then she touched my feet and I'm like, well, Harry, I wouldn't do that to you anyway, but I was certainly not in your room. So I thought, that's a little strange. Well, maybe Harry, you know, whatever, you know, Harry, you know, but then my husband got COVID during COVID.
So I quarantined him in the purple room and he started hearing little girl voices. And what was really weird was. So, I had this beloved, this dog I loved, his name was Max. Pam, you remember Max? Yeah. [00:55:00] He was my little spaniel, I found him in the street when he was about 5 years old. Yeah. He had a horrible, horrible breath.
This dog had like the worst toilet mouth. His teeth were decayed and it was like too late. You know, I'd had him for about 10 years. So he was about 13 and his teeth became really stinky. And, but I loved this dog. Like I didn't care if he smelled like, you know, an unclean toilet. Like this dog was my boy.
Well, we had to euthanize him. He passed away and like, I was just devastated. So fast forward during the pandemic, James is staying in the purple room. And he ends up hearing this little girl and then he hears dog. It feels like a dog's under the bed and he's looking and you know, this little girl's laughing and he's kind of freaked out.
Cause my husband's more, he's way less woo woo than we are. And then, this is where it gets really weird. So he, this is happening in the purple room and he's not telling me. I'm in [00:56:00] our bedroom and I can smell that dog. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, Max had been dead for a few years and I had never smelled him since.
He had just such a distinct smell of his body. rotting teeth. So he, I smelled the dog and then all of a sudden like this huge waft and then our other dog Lily, who's this big hound, tried to go under our bed, which she never does. We have this mechanical bed, one of those beds you can raise, elevate. So there's a very low, um, there's not much room to go underneath it, but this dog smelled something under the bed, went under the bed, looked all over the bed.
Came out, of course nothing was there, and all of a sudden the smell was gone. So James and I are confirmed about this, like, I think Max came to visit. And then we talked to, um, this other psychic before this one. I don't know, it came up, but basically the psychic said, Max, came and brought you his other side, this [00:57:00] little g to show her, you guys.
An no doubt. I've never smel Um, you know, wafted in a wasn't a fart. It was lik And the little girl, she, for some reason that purple room is like a portal for this little girl, and, and she brought Max to see me. It's a fun
Rachel: room. It's, it's like the, the Prince Purple Reign room. Like it's a fun, if I was a ghost and I had to pick a fun room to come through, like.
Pam: Well my animals come and visit me. They do? Yeah, um, I don't know if you remember Buffy. She was the little, um, cocker spaniel that we had when the kids were little. Yeah. And, uh, she, I loved her and she loved me. And, um, so when she died, actually, [00:58:00] we had a, euthanized her also. She was very, very sick. And I always felt so horrible about that.
Um, And so I was sitting and watching television one night and, you know, I started thinking about her and I started to cry. And all of a sudden I heard this barking at our door, you know, out by the pool. And I heard like, you know, somebody jumping on the door against the glass. So I went to the and there she was, looking beautiful and young again.
And she, um, stood up on her hind legs. and put her feet up on the door so that, you know, she stretched herself out and I went to open the door and she was gone. That is so cool. You saw that. But I felt like she was [00:59:00] telling me I'm okay, you know? And, but I swear to God, I saw her as clear as I can see all of you.
It was really something. And I felt good. Some really nice feeling came over me. You know, like, peaceful feeling came over me. So I wasn't scared or anything.
Dana: I think that's such a gift. Like, that was a gift she gave to you. And I think,
Pam: yeah,
Dana: so, you know.
Pam: And then my little teeny, she, you know, she was always on my lap.
And I swear to God, I sit and watch TV and that cat gets in my lap. And I can feel the weight of her in my lap. I know it's
Rachel: her. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. We had our cat, Shiloh, and I still see her out of the corner of my eye sometimes, or like, I'll just feel her, like, I will feel like there is a cat in the [01:00:00] room, it's the weirdest thing, it's like, there is, my cat is in this room, and I, I just know it's, it's her, like, I, I know it's her, so, I haven't seen her, yeah.
Laurel: I love that. I had this, a similar thing with Buffy too. She, uh, was at the kitchen table doing homework after she had passed. And, you know, we would let her in and out the back door and, um, you know, to go out. And I just got up. It was like I had this feeling that, you know, automatic to get up and go and, you know, open the door.
And, like, nobody was there. But it was like I just had this. Since that she was there, she wanted to come in, you know, and just automatically got up, opened the door, nothing, you know, no one's there. Yeah,
Rachel: I had a, [01:01:00] I had a, um, weird thing happen in college, I remember. Going back to seeing, seeing things when you wake up.
I remember being in my dorm room in my bed and it, you know, I, I was sleeping and I wake up and there's a man standing at the foot of my bed looking at me. And I mean, he was dressed just in kind of like dark clothes and he was there and I remember freaking out and sitting up and then he was just gone.
And I don't think I was asleep. I don't think I was dreaming. Cause I like, when I dream, I don't, if I'm in, I don't really dream about like my real surroundings when I dream, when I dream, it's very clear. I'm dreaming. This was like clear as day man standing at the end of my bed. And this was like, you're in college and you read stories of like intruders and stuff.
And so of course I totally freaked out that there was a man standing there, but then he was just gone. Like just disappeared. I don't know [01:02:00] who it was. It was Ithaca, New York in the 2000s. Who knows what was visiting in my apartment building. But that was kind of creepy. Um, Laurel, did you have a haunted house?
Our current, our kitchen
Laurel: is haunted.
Dana: Okay, are you inferring like Somebody's cooking isn't up to par, it's so bad, it's haunting you, or are we talking real spirits here?
Laurel: No, real stuff. I mean, this is like, and again, my house was built in the 90s. We're only the second owners. As far as I know, the family that lived there before us is fine, alive and well.
So like, I have no explanation, but, um, things fall out of cabinets, cabinet doors open. You know, there's a lot of clattering. It's very noisy in there. And, you know, there's always, like, things falling [01:03:00] and things falling over and, you know, just weird, random stuff that just happens. And so, Eric and I have just taken to saying, Oh, it's the ghost.
And then we had to stop doing that once our little one was big enough to, um, Kind of understand, like, he got, he's very sensitive. He got very freaked out thinking we really did have a ghost. So we can't really say that when he's around now, but that was just kind of always our automatic explanation. And, you know, it's, we have cats.
So, but like, you know, the cats will all be laying on the floor in front of us, you know, or on the couch with us. It's not the cats. So, you know, we don't have any other explanation, and it's just, While we're sitting right there, like, the kids are up in bed, the cats are right there, we're on the couch. And these things happen in the kitchen, and we have no real explanation.
And there have been weird, you know, things happen around the house, but this ghost seems pretty centered in our kitchen. It's in the cooking. If only a
Dana: [01:04:00] ghost could cook you some meals. Put that ghost away. Exactly.
Laurel: Or clean a little. Yeah, some knocking stuff over, making more mess.
Pam: How about your accident? Oh,
Dana: oh wow.
So, um, yeah. So, you know, in 2022, I had a really horrible freak accident. I wish I had been like, this happened while I was skydiving or something sexy, skiing in the Alps, but, uh, I was walking on a sidewalk like I do every day walking my dogs. And it was a beautiful day, but it was in February, but the snow was all melting and there was the tiniest piece of black ice and just, just the luck of the draw, I slipped and I heard crack, crack, crack.
And basically I amputated my foot. All three bones that attach your, uh, foot to your ankle, to my ankle broke. And it was horrific. It's, it's called a trimolar fracture. And basically it's the [01:05:00] worst kind of ankle break you can get. Only a small percentage are lucky like me. And typically they see them in, um, car accidents, not.
Sidewalk slips, although it's been known to happen. Anyway, this put me on a two year journey of recovery that was completely unexpected because even I didn't know anything about ankle breaks. You think ankle breaks, I'll be back rocking in six months or three months. No, this, this, the doctor said just before I went under for surgery, he goes, you will be in a lot of pain.
What's up, Dr. Joseph? You will be in a lot of pain! And, um, It was like a year
Laurel: before you could even
Dana: walk, right? And it's, it's at least a two year recovery, and I'm past two years now, and I still have a lot of discomfort. I've learned to distinguish between pain and discomfort. So I have a discomfort, but I am back to doing most everything that I can do.
So I'm grateful, but let's go back to, I had to have two surgeries and I was in excruciating pain. I have a [01:06:00] very high pain tolerance. I think most women have a higher pain tolerance than men. You know, y'all do childbirth or. You know, just having our periods from a young age, cramps, you know, and of course I'm tattooed.
consider myself somebody with a high pain tolerance. So even when the doctor sort of whispered in my ear, which is, yeah, exactly what you don't want to hear when you're going into surgery, you will be in pain. I mean, so they gave, I woke up and they gave me four days worth of, um, OxyContin.
And. Let's just fast forward to I was in 90 days, 24 7. Imagine that. So all my nerves in my foot, you know, they reattached it with plates and screws. So imagine your foot feeling like it's on top of a pile of burning coals 24 7 for 99 days. And it was the most intense, continuous pain, the type of pain that will drive you mad and to have really, really dark thoughts.
So my [01:07:00] sister, my, my husband was totally overwhelmed. We have four businesses, 25 employees, um, dogs, household. And I called my sister who was living in Las Vegas and she came out the next day. She was like, I will help you. And she did, but I was having extremely dark thoughts because they wouldn't give me opioids because of the opioid crisis.
And it was like the only thing that would help. And. I was just in severe, severe pain. So every four days we'd call and find finally my, um, primary care doctor. I said, look, I'm going to be buying these on the black market. If you don't prescribe them to me, I cannot, this is severe pain. This is like 15 out of 10.
And so she ended up prescribing me some and we got on a plan. If I got addicted, you know how to get off, but I never got addicted. Now I haven't taken an opioid in over two years. But let's go back. So during those 99 days of extreme pain, I had really, really dark thoughts. So one night they had set up a hospital [01:08:00] bed, uh, my sister and James, because I couldn't go upstairs and we had a bathroom downstairs, so we had a hospital bed, a really uncomfortable, you know, mechanical hospital bed that you can run in the middle of our living room and our living room has a fireplace and then there's a mantle.
And I have all these pictures of my mom, Margo. Up there. And then I I've collected with her and after her, um, a lot of Mexican folk art that we either bought together, she bought for me. We used, we used to go to, um, no mass or what's it called in Atlanta? Mass. Yeah.
Rachel: Yeah.
Dana: The restaurant there, we'd love to go shopping in the gifts together.
So she bought me a lot of stuff. So I have this whole above the mantle and above her photos. are pictures of like, uh, Mexican folk art, like tin, uh, sacred hearts, you know, with the burning flame, hearts with wings. And I'm really into hands, so I have a, I have some hands and they're nailed in really, really [01:09:00] strong along the wall above the mantel.
So I have this really beautiful display of Mexican folk art above her photos. And also to give you a little background, um, info so you don't get all skeptical. So the band, I play in a couple bands and we rehearse in our basement and you know, we're a loud hard rock band. These Mexican folk art pieces are nailed in so well that they don't even rattle on those walls.
They don't fall, they don't rattle, they're nailed in. So fast, let's rewind. So one night I'm just in such severe pain, I'm going to lose my mind. And it's about 11 o'clock at night. And I'm just crying my eyes out and Robin and James are sitting on the couch and they're just you can tell they were bereft.
They were like, um, you know, how, how, how do we help you? And I said, guys, if I don't, when you're, I don't know if anyone listening or I know Pam, you've had a lot of surgeries and pain, but when you're in the middle of pain [01:10:00] and you don't know of a finite end to it, you don't know when it's going to end. And you think, oh my God, how am I going to live my life like this?
I can't live my life. And I said to, I said to them, I'm like, if I can't get this pain under control, if this pain doesn't end, I don't want to live. I don't think I can make it, you guys. I just don't want to live. So all of a
Pam: sudden.
Dana: It changes who
Pam: you are as a person. Yeah. The pain. You see. It changes who you
Dana: are as a person.
Can you hear me? Pause because I'm getting a weird upload. So, so this one dark night, I'm having very dark thoughts, and basically I declare to Robin and James that I'm thinking of killing myself. And I, but, in my heart I knew my mom would kill me if I killed myself because she fought so hard to live, and she would be pissed.
So, but the funny thing is, as soon as I said that, All the lights in the house [01:11:00] flickered. I heard a bang and then coming upstairs. So we have Amazon echoes all over the house. Cause I love music and I'm always listening to music, but this one echo that we never use started playing this Coldplay song, and if you know me, I'm not a code for Coldplay fan.
Um, so Alexa was never told to play Coldplay. Um, and it was Vida, Viva La Vida was the song. And it means live the life. So that started blasting off the echo. So, so I thought that was a pretty clear message from the mothership. Like, you know, so then about a month later, I'm still in just severe pain, losing my mind, my sister procured some marijuana edibles.
She's like, take these. It won't stop the pain, but you won't care as much. And we were literally taking every day minute by minute. Let's just get through this minute. Let's get through that minute. I mean, it's pain, you know, again, Pam, I know [01:12:00] you've experienced this so much that you can't even sleep. You know, it is that, it is my foot on hot coals.
So it's about three in the morning, I'm sitting in that uncomfortable, sweaty hospital bed in the middle of our living room, and Robin and, uh, James, they'd gone to bed, and I just started crying, and I looked at my mom's photo on the mantel, and I said, Please help me, I am suffering. And I went to bed, and I woke up that morning, and one of the Milagro, one of the tin, Mexican tin folk art hands, I have these folk art hands, that was nailed up there, ended up, I get Scholls even telling you this, because there's no way this could have happened, you'd need a ladder to get up to even get the hand, was, had fallen, and was right next to her portrait, like she was giving me a hand, and I still have it there, Um, and then things did start to turn around after that.
The pain started subsiding. I was able to get on an [01:13:00] opioid, um, treatment plan with my primary doctor, even though my orthopedic surgeon, you know, wouldn't do it. And I started to heal, but she was giving me a hand from the other side.
Pam: That's amazing. Well, you know, uh, it's very interesting because you know that she took care of me during my.
foot and ankle surgeries. And, you know, I had my Feet and ankles totally reconstructed. So I know exactly the pain you're talking about. And I don't think I've ever been the same since I went through those operations. And I ended up having four operations. Oh my God. And. So I know exactly what you're talking about.
And I today still have a lot of discomfort, what I call discomfort. But you know, it's different than the horrible pain I was [01:14:00] having. Um, but it's never going to go away. I'm going to have to live with it the rest of my life. And your mom, Margo, took care of me during those surgeries. And The reason that I really believe you, Dana, is because of, it's her personality.
She, what, what she would do with me is she would distract me in any way she could. She had me painting. She had me doing puzzles. She had me playing, um, Scrabble. Here I am excruciating pain. And then she got mad because I beat her at Scrabble. I'm in pain.
But she always would say to me, Pam, you've got to keep going. You've got to keep going. We can get through this. And I just [01:15:00] know that, you know, it just sounds like her personality, that she would come to you like that. In other words, she wasn't one to say, oh, poor baby. You know, she was more, look, we're going to do it.
Just get through it. You know, you're going to live. Stop thinking about nonsense. And, you know, pick yourself up and keep going. And I know I used to get upset with her because I felt she was, you know, so mean. But really, it was probably the best thing to do because if she had stood there and said, Oh, poor baby, poor baby, you know, I just would have gotten worse and probably felt worse.
So I, I do believe you. I think it sounds just like your mom and her, you know, pulling things off the wall and getting your attention is what she would have done.
Dana: Well, can I add, [01:16:00] you know, she, she was a very, for you listeners, she was a strong, very, Strong woman. And yeah, she didn't wallow even when she was dying of cancer.
She was very stoic about it. She very seldom, um, expressed the pain she was in or, you know, even up till the end, like we didn't really know, you know, the extent of the pain that she was in until she was ready to go. Um, but she, up till the end. Yeah.
Rachel: Oh, well, I really appreciate. You coming on and sharing with us. And we love you and miss you. Tell us where we can
Laurel: find
Rachel: you. Yeah, tell us, tell us where we can find you and what, what you want to plug.
Dana: Oh, well thank you. Well, I love and miss you all, um, and I hope to see you soon. Um, you can find me, uh, all our tattoo shops have websites, LuckyMonkeyTattoo.
com, [01:17:00] ElectricSuperstition. com, LovelyMonkeyTattoo, and Ritual is secret, so there's no, click. Website, um, TrueDevilDetroit. com and, um, on Facebook, Dana Forrester Rocks. So come visit some, come say hello.
Laurel: Right now. I'm very grateful that this isn't a video podcast.
Rachel: Yes.
Laurel: We're on zoom something today.
Rachel: We, yes, we, um, we are nice looking people, but not at 10 AM on a weekday with no makeup.
So be glad. Listen, weird phone angle. Weird, weird angles. And so we will see you again in a few months. And we are thankful to those who have listened. We hope in the break you will share and like, and tell people about us.
Laurel: Give us ideas for next season.
Rachel: Yeah. Give us ideas for next season. Although I think Rachel
Laurel: still has a whole list, but.
Rachel: What do [01:18:00] you want to know about and what should we talk about? And I'm excited to see how this evolves. So, all righty. Love you guys.
Pam: Bye. Bye.