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Mecca's job taught her an important lesson
about death that someone might already be waiting

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to greet you on the other side. This happened in Virginia, October twenty

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twenty one. My name is Edwin. Here's a true scary story. A

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couple months ago, I got a
job at a retirement home, which was

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not my first choice of places to
work. I'm actually a mortuary science student,

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and a lot of people think funeral
homes are creepy. I never really

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felt that way. Funeral homes don't
bother me. What that is is basically

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funeral services. So my education and
degree, when I finish it is gonna

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be about it all about death and
dying and the process of decomposition, and

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a lot of it is about preserving
bodies when you are embolved in a funeral

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home. That's the kind of thing
that I'll be doing and actually have done

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as a part of my classes.
Like I said, I'm still a student

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and I'm a single mom, so
I have to have some kind of income

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coming in, and I live in
a really small town, and the local

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funeral home didn't have any apprenticeships open, and I had to find something.

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So there were job openings at the
retirement home. So I got the job,

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and I ended up working one sixteen
hour shift a week, and that

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was on Sunday nights. So I
would go in at three o'clock in the

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afternoon and leave at seven o'clock in
the morning, so most of the time

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that I was there, everyone was
asleep. And I made it through the

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initial training okay, But my first
day out on the floor, I realized

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that what had marketed itself as a
retirement home was really more like a nursing

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home in disguise. When I think
of retirement homes, I think of people

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who are they're retired, they've downsized, they're kind of living their best life.

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And this was not that. We
had residents who were basically total care

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patients. There were people who couldn't
feed themselves, couldn't get out of bed

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on their own, that kind of
thing. So that was kind of surprising,

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but it was fine, this is
short term, it's not going to

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be forever. I can make this
work. After a certain point, after

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dinner, all the residents go to
bed, the lights go off, and

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the way the building is built,
it was remodeled the and I was on

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the memory care unit so the way
they had put the walls up to make

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the memory care unit, the light
switch was not on the unit. The

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light switch you would have to leave
the unit and walk down the hall to

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turn the lights back on once they
were off. So it's a Halloween night

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and everything had gone pretty everything was
normal until it wasn't midnight. It may

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have been eleven, it may have
been one, but it was somewhere around

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there, and we're sitting there.
It's me and a coworker and we're the

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only two that are back there on
that unit. We actually had a resident

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that he had a lot of trouble
sleeping, and he would a lot of

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times he would just sit up with
us at night. Really interesting guy,

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so he would just sit there and
hang out in between rounds, and we

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had to go and check on everybody, so we were all kind of sitting

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there. I were really surprised to
see this other resident come down the hall.

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And she was a person who normally
she would go to sleep after dinner

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and she would sleep just straight through
till we got her up in the morning.

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She wasn't the type of person who
was up and down very much.

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So we look up and she's she's
standing there, and we were in the

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living area, had some lamps on
and stuff like that. So we look

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up and she's standing there and it
was kind of startling because she was in

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tears. So we're like, oh, my goodness, may what's wrong?

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What happened? And she said there's
something black on my ceiling. I was

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like, okay, so it's October, it's cold outside. Spiders sometimes will

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come in, you know, when
it gets cold. And I was like,

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okay, so was it small like
a spider or big like a shadow.

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And she looks at me and she's
breathing heavy, she's got tears pouring

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down her face, and she says, there's something big and black crawling across

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my ceiling. And I was kind
of joking, you know, to just

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kind of bring some humor into the
moment. And I look over at the

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other resident who used to be the
priest, and oh, like, okay,

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Joe, you might have to come
with us for this one because it's

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Halloween knight and there's something. And
then I very quickly remembered I'm on the

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memory care unit, because he looked
at me and he said, if it's

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raining, take the second bus.
He didn't even remember he had been a

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priest at that time, and it
was such an eerie feeling because it felt

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like I was very much alone.
And of course I wouldn't have asked him

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to come with me because he's a
resident and that wouldn't have been okay,

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But it was just kind of in
the moment like, oh, that's okay,

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here we go. So we head
down this hallway and like I said,

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the light switch is not on the
unit. I can't turn the light

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on. And if you've ever walked
within eighty something year old lady on a

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walk or they don't move quickly.
And it was a pitch black hallway with

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this glaring red exit sign at the
end, and open the door. And

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the last thing I want to do
is look up at the ceiling. But

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at the same time, I also
don't like the thought of something being over

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my head that I can't see and
there's nothing there, and you know,

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only is there nothing there. There's
nothing that I can see that could have

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been mistaken for something big and black
and crawling across the ceiling. She was

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really upset. So we looked all
through the room. We looked in the

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closet, we looked in the bathroom
and there was just nothing, and she

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said she wanted to move, she
wanted to change rooms. She didn't like

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being down there at the end of
the hallway. And we're like, you

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know, it's the middle of the
night. There's nothing that we can do.

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If you can just try to get
some rest and then we'll tell day

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shift and maybe they can help you
in the morning, maybe find you a

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different room or something like that.
So she agreed and she laid back down

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and we went on back out to
the living area and we had some time

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before the next round. So there
was a friend of mine who I was

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pretty sure would be up at that
time, and I sent him a message.

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I was like, Okay, this
is really creepy because nothing's happened before,

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and it's Halloween night and now this
really spooky thing has happened. And

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so he comes back with he's like, I hate to ask, and this

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might sound bad, but is she
okay? She is she sick? Is

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you know? And he's like,
the reason I ask is because maybe it's

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death and it's just come in to
find her. So by that time it

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was time for our next round,
and she was on the hallway closest to

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us, and we checked on everybody. They were fine. Checked on her

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and she had gotten back to sleep, so she was okay. Nothing was

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strange in the room. We go
down the other hallway and everybody was fine

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on that hallway. But then we
get to the last room on that second

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hallway and it belonged to a guy
who he had not been feeling well recently.

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He'd had some medical issues come up, so he had been in the

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bed and he was one of those
we had to help him for meal times

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and that kind of thing. So
we go in to check and I noticed

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when I went in, his top
two dresser drawers were open, which was

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a little weird because everyone that I
had worked with up to that point was

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really good about when they came in. They would kind of straighten up,

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and they would clean up after themselves
and leave the room a little better than

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they found it. And I thought
maybe he had had some family there earlier.

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Maybe dayshift was just going to hurry
and had a lot going on.

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So I closed the drawers and we
went on to the next thing, and

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nothing happened. In between rounds,
we go to do rounds again. First

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hallways fine, second hallways fine.
Get to the last room on that second

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hallway, the same room, same
guy. We go in, and those

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two dresser drawers are open again.
Now I know that there's nobody else on

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the unit besides me and my coworker, and I was still fairly new,

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so she hadn't gone anywhere without me. I was there with her because I

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was learning. None of the other
residents could have gone in the door's lock.

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You have to have a key to
you know, the person on the

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inside can come out, but you
have to have a key to get inside.

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So no one else had been in
the room, and the dresser drawers

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were open again, and I'm just
kind of sitting there like, Okay,

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it's Halloween. I've got black things
curling on the ceiling, I've got drawers,

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and if I make it through tonight, I had never coming back in

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this place. We ended up.
That was I think that was the last

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round that we had to do before
we started getting everybody up for the day.

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And the lights came back on and
everything else from there was pretty normal,

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And so I left and went home
and went to sleep because I just

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worked a sixteen hour shift overnight,
so I slept a pretty good while On

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Monday, when I woke up.
Not long after I woke up on Monday,

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I get a text and it was
one of those group texts that it

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was from work and they had sent
to all the the employees, and it

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said just wanted to let everyone know
that George passed away. And that was

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the same guy whose dresser drawers had
had been open on I got kills all

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over and my first thought was it
got him. Whatever that black thing was

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crawling around, it got him.
I still don't think I necessarily believe that

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it was death itself, but there
are so many stories of people who when

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they're close to dying, they will
reach out their hand or they'll speak to

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someone that no one else can see, and it being Halloween night and they

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say the veil is thin on Halloween. Maybe we were just close enough to

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who or whatever that was that was
coming to greet him. Maybe we were

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able to see or feel something that
we wouldn't have on at some other time.

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And I did text the director.
I'm like, you know, I

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don't think this is the right thing
for me, and I'm sorry, but

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you know, I just I can't
come back. I don't think it was

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like my friend said, it could
have been death. I don't see it

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as being like a reaper situation,
but I do think it was something that

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came because you know, George was
so close to the end, and all

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the stories that you hear about people
who they see somebody or they reach out

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to somebody right at the point when
they die, I think that it just

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knew it was time, and it
came to be with them at the end.

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I've had to spend time in a
funeral home preparing bodies for funerals and

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viewings and that sort of thing,
and I never got a creepy feeling from

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that. I never had the same
feeling in a funeral home that I had

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that night at the retirement home.
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00:13:30,759 --> 00:13:35,440
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