The Girl Who Saw Heaven - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 5/8/23

unbreakable bond between the two of them. When two months later, Aris Lisa to help her tell her story, Lisa had no idea what's saying yes to this simple request would entail. Hence the Girl who Saw Heaven. Lisa, welcome to the program.

one stage, so there were tornadoes everywhere. But on that day, I believe there were sixty two tornadoes that touched down in Alabama, and one of them hit Roofs, which is a little community that Ari's family was in, and for just the last minute decision that her father made to protect some other members of his family, Ari and her family ended up. Her mom and dad ended up in a little tiny bathroom in the middle of the house, which was the right place to be with a number

of other family members. It's really strange out it all came together and in just a few minutes, so many people ended up in one place. But it was a direct hit of an EF four tornado wipes the whole house out completely off the foundation. There was nothing left, I think, but like a gaff tank. And it killed Ari's mom and dad, and her grandmother and grandfather and

a little baby cousin and another cousin was injured. Actually, there were three other people who were injured besides Ari, and I didn't even know Ari before that April twenty seventh tornado.

you can remember them, you know, I did. Her grandmother had already told me that Aria had talked about going to heaven and watching her family go in a few months before that, but I still didn't know that's what she wanted to write a book about. But the first day I met her in first grade, she was in first grade. Then I met her after school, and I just was gonna let her tell me her story and you know, talk to me and write it down and

then let her draw the pictures. But she had a lot of the pictures already done, and she was adamant about the only thing she wanted to have the story be about was the tornado and what happened during the tornado leading up to the tornado, and her trip to heaven to watch her family go in as amazing as all that found. That's what That's what it was all about.

so precious for her to hold on to. And I had no idea the depths of this and how she felt, and how she had already written so much about it and drawn pictures she started drawing pictures in the hospital and intensive care. I had no idea of the depth of it, or of her premonitions of everything. And so I guess in the very beginning, you know, it's probably like most people who are listening to this right now saying, right, but I didn't doubt that she had some experience, you know,

or some dream or something. But I didn't really think she actually went to heaven and saw this. And now it's back to tell us. But as soon as I started talking to her, I did believe that it was so obvious.

So they rushed into the house, got into the bathroom, and Ari you know, talks about hearing you know, glass break and things fall off the wall, and hearing you know, things hit the house and trucks hit the house, and then basically her her dad was holding her, I guess like she was facing him, and she had her arms wrapped around him and her legs and she ate she he actually held her so tight that he bruised her lung.

So he was holding on her, and he was a muscular guy, and he had his back up against the bathroom door. And so, you know, Ari talks about you know that and the things she said, everyone was really afraid, but no one really said very much. And she talks about, you know, her mom screaming as the tornado actually hit the house, and her grandmother saying, well, this is it.

We love y'all. And then she talked about being up in the tornado and she remembers being by herself in the tornado with cows all around her, moving really loud, and there there is cattle, you know, around her grandparents' home, and this little dog named Pepper who wouldn't come into the bathroom with him, and she Pepper was in the tornado with her, and so she said, you know, I just remember think the why I'm not with my dad

or somebody who was just holding me. And then she said, something knocks me out and that was worse than being knocked out, don't know what to call it. And then she just said, and then I saw Mama standing over there, pointing and saying, hey, look at what is this. Let's go see And it was a giant their case going to heaven. And so then her family, you know, was all going with her mama to see the staircase. And that's when Ari realized that her angel was with her,

holding her hand. And then she saw her grandfather, who had already passed away, come down to the family. And we can tell the whole story, but that's that's when it happened. So it was. One of the things that really impresses me is how instant it was. I mean, their bodies looked horrible. Obviously what we saw it was a horrible, unfair kind of situation, but they either didn't remember it or they didn't care, and they were fine. So that instant changed from you know, being here kind

of to be born into the next place. Is what happened.

and traumatized. Basically not because of the dream, like it wasn't a nightmare, but because of the thought of losing both of her parents at the same time, and she says being left alone. She was just afraid of being left alone. So that six months she was traumatized. She cried every day at kindergarten. This is a completely happy, very intelligent, little kindergarten child who you know, had not

had any kind of social issues at all. That started about mid ok two in kindergarten, telling everyone that most of her parents were going to die at the same time. She needed to leave kindergarten and be with them, and she couldn't understand why they wouldn't let her leave kindergarten and be with them. But that was the time she

was traumatized. From my perspective, during the six months. She was just a picture of grief and just telling everybody over and over that that was going to happen and they had to get ready and who was she going to live with, and you know, they needed to get a will, and she lost weight and you know, had black circles under her eyes. And like I said, I didn't know her at this time. I didn't know any

of this. But then it's the strangest thing because basically, when April to twenty seventh happened, the events of that day happened. Auri said she realized when she was in the truck with her mom and dad driving to her mama's house that this was it. She said, I just knew this was it. That's the thing that she had

been dreaming about. But that getting to see her whole family, all of them, walk into heaven and just be perfect and be beautiful and walk into this crazy, beautiful place that she has a hard time explaining when it was over. And when I first met her at the visitation, George, she didn't cry. She didn't she had one tear in the three hours I was there. She went up and put her arm around someone else who was crying. She went into the sanctuary one time, and coming back out

of it, she saw someone she knew who's crying. She climbed up and put her arm around him in comforted him. And basically she has not cried about it. She doesn't. She's not in grief in that way. She doesn't miss her parents and she had trauma physical to get over, so it hasn't. That's that's what makes it all so strange, like her grief was actually with her parents there to hold her and grieve with her. Very unusual.

Her kindergarten teacher told me after the visitation, I didn't know any of this when I'm meeting this little girl to help her through this five casolic visitation with thousands of people who came, you know that she told her teacher that she had a dream and she knew both of her parents were one that died at the same time, and she needed to go home. That was the first thing she said. And Laura Byers is her kindergarten teacher's name, and she said it wasn't kindergarten crying. It was sobbing,

like sobbing, noisy, sobbing all day long. There would be a few times maybe she would stop a little bit, you know, she was reading or got engaged in something, but it continued all day every day for really it was mid October until about middle of February where there were almost was like a family intervention, but months months and Laura Byers. You know, I've taught teachers, and I've been around a lot of teachers, and I think there are very few kindergarten teachers who would have dealt with

it the way Laura did. And of course that Laura at first said, you know, well, Aria, those are just bad dreams. Don't don't don't like that. Everybody has a bad dreams. It's just bad dreams. But Arias, it's not just dreams. And so then it went on, you know, on and on and and then already had to talk to the school counselor you know, of course, and nurses, and I mean everyone tried to convince her it was just a bad dream that if one parent died, the

other parent would take care of her. But she would just say, no, both of my parents are going to die. They're both going to die, and I need to be with them. And it was very well documented. Everyone in the community knew about it, all the children, all the family.

But you know, Laura Byers just just that, you know, all she could do was just kind of love on her, and she would pick her up and carry her on her hip once she talked in kindergarten, or put her on her lap, when she was teaching, and she just let her be with her. And I know Laura told me that Ari, you know, would say sometimes she'd say, I know, I'm making your job hard and I'm so sorry. That's not what I know. It's so hard on you.

But I have to be with my parents. Y'all have to let me get be with my parents' side the ordeal.

you couldn't really see the end of them. So she estimated when she was kent on first grade that they were like a thousand steps, but then still maybe more than a thousand. But today she described, you know, the angels, and we could talk about that later. But when she actually followed her family to heaven and none of her family acknowledged her, like she didn't get to communicate with her family, or they were to like goodbye, or it

wasn't anything like that. She was just watching. And so when they got to the top of the stairs, and she talks about how they went up the stairs, but they get to the top and she said, you know, at the top of the stairs were these big gates, she describes gates, and she just said that there were even going up the stairs and in the field the glimpsairs, they were all these bright lights, and she would just I wish I had recorded it. If I had known, you know, I should have videoed it, or you know,

her talking to me, but I didn't. I actually have

some cassette tapes somewhere of those interviews. But anyway, though, she's talking about all these bright lights, and she would just get so her eyes would get so big, talking about all these beautiful lights that surrounded them as they went up to heaven and they got there with the big gates that were she said, you can't exactly describe the color, but they were irridescent and like pearls, which of course is very what people say the pearly gates,

you know, but she doesn't say that, but that's how she described it. And then she was allowed to go through the gates, and she said she just knew everything, like no one talks like we talk. It's just like a knowing. She would just know that she could go to the gates, and she just knew to follow her family or and she knew what you know, it's being communicated to them. And then they get to the gates.

She said, somewhere along there, her family's clothing were just normal going up the stairs, but they changed to what already said, are those really beautiful heaven clothes that were almost sounds like it that the clothes had white in them or something, but some kind of beautiful, creamy white. And her family had those clothes on before they went through the doors, which was the next thing they encountered.