Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George s Nory
Speaker 2: with you. Doctor Lisa Reeburn has a PhD in education,
Speaker 2: spent twenty three years in CAA twelve education and eleven
Speaker 2: years and higher education. Now, Lisa met young Ari, who
Speaker 2: I was talking about, for the first time at the
Speaker 2: only five casket visitations she'd ever attend, my gosh, and
Speaker 2: she was there to help Ari understand and participate in
Speaker 2: this very tragic event. This first meeting led to an
Speaker 2: unbreakable bond between the two of them. When two months later,
Speaker 2: Aris Lisa to help her tell her story, Lisa had
Speaker 2: no idea what's saying yes to this simple request would entail.
Speaker 2: Hence the Girl who Saw Heaven. Lisa, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, George, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2: Can tell us a little bit more about this tragic
Speaker 2: event that occurred in twenty eleven.
Speaker 3: Well that what you just interdced was was very good.
Speaker 3: And meet Ari for the first time at that five
Speaker 3: casket visitation that you know, I've never attended anything like that.
Speaker 3: On April twenty seven, that was a day that was
Speaker 3: predicted to have bad weather, and it was part of
Speaker 3: a three day outbreak. It was the worst day, and
Speaker 3: it actually did not just affect Alabama, but about twenty
Speaker 3: one stage, so there were tornadoes everywhere. But on that day,
Speaker 3: I believe there were sixty two tornadoes that touched down
Speaker 3: in Alabama, and one of them hit Roofs, which is
Speaker 3: a little community that Ari's family was in, and for
Speaker 3: just the last minute decision that her father made to
Speaker 3: protect some other members of his family, Ari and her
Speaker 3: family ended up. Her mom and dad ended up in
Speaker 3: a little tiny bathroom in the middle of the house,
Speaker 3: which was the right place to be with a number
Speaker 3: of other family members. It's really strange out it all
Speaker 3: came together and in just a few minutes, so many
Speaker 3: people ended up in one place. But it was a
Speaker 3: direct hit of an EF four tornado wipes the whole
Speaker 3: house out completely off the foundation. There was nothing left,
Speaker 3: I think, but like a gaff tank. And it killed
Speaker 3: Ari's mom and dad, and her grandmother and grandfather and
Speaker 3: a little baby cousin and another cousin was injured. Actually,
Speaker 3: there were three other people who were injured besides Ari,
Speaker 3: and I didn't even know Ari before that April twenty
Speaker 3: seventh tornado.
Speaker 2: Once you started getting to know her and she asked
Speaker 2: you to help her tell her story, what did.
Speaker 3: You think, Well, at first, I've worked with a lot
Speaker 3: of children who have different difficulties, and I've helped a
Speaker 3: lot of kids tell their stories, and usually their stories
Speaker 3: are about themselves and their family and what they like,
Speaker 3: and you know that kind of thing. And that is
Speaker 3: actually what I thought that she wanted me to do
Speaker 3: to help her, you know, write a little book that
Speaker 3: would tell about her family before the tornadoes, kind of
Speaker 3: you can remember them, you know, I did. Her grandmother
Speaker 3: had already told me that Aria had talked about going
Speaker 3: to heaven and watching her family go in a few
Speaker 3: months before that, but I still didn't know that's what
Speaker 3: she wanted to write a book about. But the first
Speaker 3: day I met her in first grade, she was in
Speaker 3: first grade. Then I met her after school, and I
Speaker 3: just was gonna let her tell me her story and
Speaker 3: you know, talk to me and write it down and
Speaker 3: then let her draw the pictures. But she had a
Speaker 3: lot of the pictures already done, and she was adamant
Speaker 3: about the only thing she wanted to have the story
Speaker 3: be about was the tornado and what happened during the
Speaker 3: tornado leading up to the tornado, and her trip to
Speaker 3: heaven to watch her family go in as amazing as
Speaker 3: all that found. That's what That's what it was all about.
Speaker 2: Did you believe her in the beginning?
Speaker 3: Well, but I had never really heard anybody talk about
Speaker 3: going to heaven, and it sounded pretty strange. I guess
Speaker 3: when Susan called me that summer and told me about,
Speaker 3: you know, are talking about seeing her family go into heaven,
Speaker 3: I just I thought, well, you know, she was raped
Speaker 3: a Christian, and you know, she knew her family would
Speaker 3: be in heaven, and probably she had some kind of
Speaker 3: a dream, and that's so sweet and something, you know,
Speaker 3: so precious for her to hold on to. And I
Speaker 3: had no idea the depths of this and how she felt,
Speaker 3: and how she had already written so much about it
Speaker 3: and drawn pictures she started drawing pictures in the hospital
Speaker 3: and intensive care. I had no idea of the depth
Speaker 3: of it, or of her premonitions of everything. And so
Speaker 3: I guess in the very beginning, you know, it's probably
Speaker 3: like most people who are listening to this right now saying, right,
Speaker 3: but I didn't doubt that she had some experience, you know,
Speaker 3: or some dream or something. But I didn't really think
Speaker 3: she actually went to heaven and saw this. And now
Speaker 3: it's back to tell us. But as soon as I
Speaker 3: started talking to her, I did believe that it was
Speaker 3: so obvious.
Speaker 2: Now when this occurred, did it was? Was it occurring
Speaker 2: for her immediately after her parents and grandparents died.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is the strangest thing. And don't let me
Speaker 3: forget to go back and talk to you about her premonitions.
Speaker 3: But yes, when she talks about in her first little
Speaker 3: book that they were all in the bathroom together, in
Speaker 3: this tiny little bathroom. Her dad barely got in the
Speaker 3: bathroom to get the door closed before the tornado hit.
Speaker 3: They drove, they left their very safe, brand new Bills
Speaker 3: house and drove to pick up his mother and two
Speaker 3: twin babies. And when they out there, they saw the tornado.
Speaker 3: So they rushed into the house, got into the bathroom,
Speaker 3: and Ari you know, talks about hearing you know, glass
Speaker 3: break and things fall off the wall, and hearing you know,
Speaker 3: things hit the house and trucks hit the house, and
Speaker 3: then basically her her dad was holding her, I guess
Speaker 3: like she was facing him, and she had her arms
Speaker 3: wrapped around him and her legs and she ate she
Speaker 3: he actually held her so tight that he bruised her lung.
Speaker 3: So he was holding on her, and he was a
Speaker 3: muscular guy, and he had his back up against the
Speaker 3: bathroom door. And so, you know, Ari talks about you
Speaker 3: know that and the things she said, everyone was really afraid,
Speaker 3: but no one really said very much. And she talks about,
Speaker 3: you know, her mom screaming as the tornado actually hit
Speaker 3: the house, and her grandmother saying, well, this is it.
Speaker 3: We love y'all. And then she talked about being up
Speaker 3: in the tornado and she remembers being by herself in
Speaker 3: the tornado with cows all around her, moving really loud,
Speaker 3: and there there is cattle, you know, around her grandparents' home,
Speaker 3: and this little dog named Pepper who wouldn't come into
Speaker 3: the bathroom with him, and she Pepper was in the
Speaker 3: tornado with her, and so she said, you know, I
Speaker 3: just remember think the why I'm not with my dad
Speaker 3: or somebody who was just holding me. And then she said,
Speaker 3: something knocks me out and that was worse than being
Speaker 3: knocked out, don't know what to call it. And then
Speaker 3: she just said, and then I saw Mama standing over there,
Speaker 3: pointing and saying, hey, look at what is this. Let's
Speaker 3: go see And it was a giant their case going
Speaker 3: to heaven. And so then her family, you know, was
Speaker 3: all going with her mama to see the staircase. And
Speaker 3: that's when Ari realized that her angel was with her,
Speaker 3: holding her hand. And then she saw her grandfather, who
Speaker 3: had already passed away, come down to the family. And
Speaker 3: we can tell the whole story, but that's that's when
Speaker 3: it happened. So it was. One of the things that
Speaker 3: really impresses me is how instant it was. I mean,
Speaker 3: their bodies looked horrible. Obviously what we saw it was
Speaker 3: a horrible, unfair kind of situation, but they either didn't
Speaker 3: remember it or they didn't care, and they were fine.
Speaker 3: So that instant changed from you know, being here kind
Speaker 3: of to be born into the next place. Is what happened.
Speaker 2: And she must be what now, Ari about eighteen years old?
Speaker 3: She is, she's eighteen, She's about to graduate from high
Speaker 3: school in a few weeks.
Speaker 2: Has she gotten over this tragedy?
Speaker 3: You know? That's the thing. That's another thing that makes
Speaker 3: me know that this all happened besides the premonitions that
Speaker 3: during the time, it was six months before this all happened,
Speaker 3: that she that she kept having this recurring dream that
Speaker 3: was a voice in her dream, a kind's voice, and
Speaker 3: she says it was Jesus that put it into her dream,
Speaker 3: saying that both of her parents were going to die
Speaker 3: at the same time. And so she was very afraid
Speaker 3: and traumatized. Basically not because of the dream, like it
Speaker 3: wasn't a nightmare, but because of the thought of losing
Speaker 3: both of her parents at the same time, and she
Speaker 3: says being left alone. She was just afraid of being
Speaker 3: left alone. So that six months she was traumatized. She
Speaker 3: cried every day at kindergarten. This is a completely happy,
Speaker 3: very intelligent, little kindergarten child who you know, had not
Speaker 3: had any kind of social issues at all. That started
Speaker 3: about mid ok two in kindergarten, telling everyone that most
Speaker 3: of her parents were going to die at the same time.
Speaker 3: She needed to leave kindergarten and be with them, and
Speaker 3: she couldn't understand why they wouldn't let her leave kindergarten
Speaker 3: and be with them. But that was the time she
Speaker 3: was traumatized. From my perspective, during the six months. She
Speaker 3: was just a picture of grief and just telling everybody
Speaker 3: over and over that that was going to happen and
Speaker 3: they had to get ready and who was she going
Speaker 3: to live with, and you know, they needed to get
Speaker 3: a will, and she lost weight and you know, had
Speaker 3: black circles under her eyes. And like I said, I
Speaker 3: didn't know her at this time. I didn't know any
Speaker 3: of this. But then it's the strangest thing because basically,
Speaker 3: when April to twenty seventh happened, the events of that
Speaker 3: day happened. Auri said she realized when she was in
Speaker 3: the truck with her mom and dad driving to her
Speaker 3: mama's house that this was it. She said, I just
Speaker 3: knew this was it. That's the thing that she had
Speaker 3: been dreaming about. But that getting to see her whole family,
Speaker 3: all of them, walk into heaven and just be perfect
Speaker 3: and be beautiful and walk into this crazy, beautiful place
Speaker 3: that she has a hard time explaining when it was over.
Speaker 3: And when I first met her at the visitation, George,
Speaker 3: she didn't cry. She didn't she had one tear in
Speaker 3: the three hours I was there. She went up and
Speaker 3: put her arm around someone else who was crying. She
Speaker 3: went into the sanctuary one time, and coming back out
Speaker 3: of it, she saw someone she knew who's crying. She
Speaker 3: climbed up and put her arm around him in comforted him.
Speaker 3: And basically she has not cried about it. She doesn't.
Speaker 3: She's not in grief in that way. She doesn't miss
Speaker 3: her parents and she had trauma physical to get over,
Speaker 3: so it hasn't. That's that's what makes it all so strange,
Speaker 3: like her grief was actually with her parents there to
Speaker 3: hold her and grieve with her. Very unusual.
Speaker 2: Indeed, is she listening to this program tonight?
Speaker 3: I doubt it because she has AP exams. She'd better
Speaker 3: not be. They will have to let her listen to
Speaker 3: her recordings.
Speaker 2: Where does she live now?
Speaker 3: She still lives in Arab Alabama. It's just a tiny
Speaker 3: little place, just a rural community of any people who've
Speaker 3: lived there for a long time, and everybody knows everyone
Speaker 3: or knows of everyone, and a bit would kind of
Speaker 3: detail that, a little bit because everyone's not familiar of
Speaker 3: what life would be like like that.
Speaker 2: These premonitions that she had, Lisa, were they ongoing when
Speaker 2: they were happening?
Speaker 3: Yes, basically she said they were almost every night and
Speaker 3: the first time that she told anyone. It was her
Speaker 3: kindergarten teacher, and I think she did tell her after
Speaker 3: the first night that that happened to her. So her
Speaker 3: dad would drop her off at school and the first time,
Speaker 3: you know, she went into kindergarten and she just started.
Speaker 3: Her kindergarten teacher told me after the visitation, I didn't
Speaker 3: know any of this when I'm meeting this little girl
Speaker 3: to help her through this five casolic visitation with thousands
Speaker 3: of people who came, you know that she told her
Speaker 3: teacher that she had a dream and she knew both
Speaker 3: of her parents were one that died at the same time,
Speaker 3: and she needed to go home. That was the first
Speaker 3: thing she said. And Laura Byers is her kindergarten teacher's name,
Speaker 3: and she said it wasn't kindergarten crying. It was sobbing,
Speaker 3: like sobbing, noisy, sobbing all day long. There would be
Speaker 3: a few times maybe she would stop a little bit,
Speaker 3: you know, she was reading or got engaged in something,
Speaker 3: but it continued all day every day for really it
Speaker 3: was mid October until about middle of February where there
Speaker 3: were almost was like a family intervention, but months months
Speaker 3: and Laura Byers. You know, I've taught teachers, and I've
Speaker 3: been around a lot of teachers, and I think there
Speaker 3: are very few kindergarten teachers who would have dealt with
Speaker 3: it the way Laura did. And of course that Laura
Speaker 3: at first said, you know, well, Aria, those are just
Speaker 3: bad dreams. Don't don't don't like that. Everybody has a
Speaker 3: bad dreams. It's just bad dreams. But Arias, it's not
Speaker 3: just dreams. And so then it went on, you know,
Speaker 3: on and on and and then already had to talk
Speaker 3: to the school counselor you know, of course, and nurses,
Speaker 3: and I mean everyone tried to convince her it was
Speaker 3: just a bad dream that if one parent died, the
Speaker 3: other parent would take care of her. But she would
Speaker 3: just say, no, both of my parents are going to die.
Speaker 3: They're both going to die, and I need to be
Speaker 3: with them. And it was very well documented. Everyone in
Speaker 3: the community knew about it, all the children, all the family.
Speaker 3: But you know, Laura Byers just just that, you know,
Speaker 3: all she could do was just kind of love on her,
Speaker 3: and she would pick her up and carry her on
Speaker 3: her hip once she talked in kindergarten, or put her
Speaker 3: on her lap, when she was teaching, and she just
Speaker 3: let her be with her. And I know Laura told
Speaker 3: me that Ari, you know, would say sometimes she'd say,
Speaker 3: I know, I'm making your job hard and I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: That's not what I know. It's so hard on you.
Speaker 3: But I have to be with my parents. Y'all have
Speaker 3: to let me get be with my parents' side the ordeal.
Speaker 2: How did she describe heaven to you, Lisa?
Speaker 3: So when she went to heaven and let's see, she
Speaker 3: started out with, you know, talking about her mama, just
Speaker 3: I mean, after she had just been killed, her mama
Speaker 3: was like, oh look at this, what's this? Let's go see,
Speaker 3: and they're all walking towards this huge step upstairs that
Speaker 3: Ari said, the stairs were very slick, very beautiful, but
Speaker 3: like split stairs, and you could look they went just
Speaker 3: up into the sky and you could look up and
Speaker 3: you couldn't really see the end of them. So she
Speaker 3: estimated when she was kent on first grade that they
Speaker 3: were like a thousand steps, but then still maybe more
Speaker 3: than a thousand. But today she described, you know, the angels,
Speaker 3: and we could talk about that later. But when she
Speaker 3: actually followed her family to heaven and none of her
Speaker 3: family acknowledged her, like she didn't get to communicate with
Speaker 3: her family, or they were to like goodbye, or it
Speaker 3: wasn't anything like that. She was just watching. And so
Speaker 3: when they got to the top of the stairs, and
Speaker 3: she talks about how they went up the stairs, but
Speaker 3: they get to the top and she said, you know,
Speaker 3: at the top of the stairs were these big gates,
Speaker 3: she describes gates, and she just said that there were
Speaker 3: even going up the stairs and in the field the glimpsairs,
Speaker 3: they were all these bright lights, and she would just
Speaker 3: I wish I had recorded it. If I had known,
Speaker 3: you know, I should have videoed it, or you know,
Speaker 3: her talking to me, but I didn't. I actually have
Speaker 3: some cassette tapes somewhere of those interviews. But anyway, though,
Speaker 3: she's talking about all these bright lights, and she would
Speaker 3: just get so her eyes would get so big, talking
Speaker 3: about all these beautiful lights that surrounded them as they
Speaker 3: went up to heaven and they got there with the
Speaker 3: big gates that were she said, you can't exactly describe
Speaker 3: the color, but they were irridescent and like pearls, which
Speaker 3: of course is very what people say the pearly gates,
Speaker 3: you know, but she doesn't say that, but that's how
Speaker 3: she described it. And then she was allowed to go
Speaker 3: through the gates, and she said she just knew everything,
Speaker 3: like no one talks like we talk. It's just like
Speaker 3: a knowing. She would just know that she could go
Speaker 3: to the gates, and she just knew to follow her
Speaker 3: family or and she knew what you know, it's being
Speaker 3: communicated to them. And then they get to the gates.
Speaker 3: She said, somewhere along there, her family's clothing were just
Speaker 3: normal going up the stairs, but they changed to what
Speaker 3: already said, are those really beautiful heaven clothes that were
Speaker 3: almost sounds like it that the clothes had white in
Speaker 3: them or something, but some kind of beautiful, creamy white.
Speaker 3: And her family had those clothes on before they went
Speaker 3: through the doors, which was the next thing they encountered.
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