Otherworld - Episode 28: The Miracle Child

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Robert, a self-described Atheist, was diagnosed with CIDP as a baby. CIPD is a rare and incapacitating disorder, which confined him to a wheelchair and left him living in children's hospitals throughout his childhood. Despite medical professionals deeming it impossible for him to walk, Robert defied the odds and achieved a miraculous recovery. His family believes this recovery may be linked to a vision of the Virgin Mary that Robert experienced shortly before. This episode delves into Robert's extraordinary journey growing up with significant challenges, and the paranormal events he encountered during this time and continues to experience to this day. Additionally, it explores how these phenomena affected the beliefs of his family members in various ways, and how despite witnessing what many people would consider miracles, Robert remains an Atheist to this day. To see photos related to this episode, click here Subscribe to Otherworld on Patreon for exclusive content and bonus interviews Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter  If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your full story at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Folks, before we get this episode started, I just want to announce one more time. The Patreon for Otherworld is officially live. We have bonus episodes. We have a Discord. And we have all sorts of exciting things coming out. If you want to hear more of this podcast, you can hear it right now. You just have to sign up and become a patron of Otherworld. It also gives you a chance to support this show.

And quite frankly, we really need your support because this takes a lot of effort to make a show like this. and we're pretty much on our own. This is an independent project, and we truly do need the support. So even if you just want to chip in, it would be very meaningful, and you could do that at patreon.com slash otherworld. Right now, I already have up there

some archived Instagram live interviews that I did. I have an interview with Wendy's daughter Harmony, where we go deeper into that entire series. I also have a bonus episode, an unreleased one, about somebody who saw a UFO in San Francisco. And most recently, I have an entire episode with the band Beach Fossils

where we're chatting, talking about the paranormal, talking about Otherworld, and also talking about some of their own experiences and what they think of all this stuff. So thank you so much for your continued support, and let's get this episode started. Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner.

This episode revolves around a man named Rob, who is currently a software engineer, and refers to himself as an atheist. Rob grew up with a very rare and debilitating disease called CIDP. And part of this story involves the very unique perspective that he had as a person who spent so much of their childhood in hospitals and going through very adult challenges, facing the possibility of death at a very young age. Luckily, Rob ended up making a miraculous recovery.

that nobody expected could happen. And Rob ended up experiencing some things during and after that that scared him for years to come. And his family also witnessed some strange things as well, but they had a very different way of interpreting it. I think this story has a lot of layers, and I'm sure a lot of people will find different ways to interpret it. And that's why I like it so much.

The show is many things, but primarily, to me, it's a show about how these strange, mysterious events end up affecting the people who witness it. And in this story, it had very different, perhaps opposite effects on the people involved. And I think it's very fascinating how different those two reactions are. So I'll let you hear it for yourself. This episode is called The Miracle Child, and you're listening to Otherworld. Well, my name is Rob. I'm from Naperville, Illinois. I'm 33.

Currently a software developer. So my story really begins at the very beginning, around one and a half years old. I basically was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called chronic inflammatory demilaliting polyaneropathy, which is mouthful. So the acronym is CIDP for short. It's a very rare condition. I think there's statistics of it where if you were to do the math, there's like 8,000 total people in the entire United States that have it. So when I was first diagnosed, they actually couldn't figure it out for a long time because of how rare it is. So initially, from the description of my parents, what happened was as a toddler, I was, you know, normal in every sense of the words.

I was initially able to walk, was starting to move around in things, but I got like a normal cold or flu. And then once I got sick that first time, my mom slowly noticed that I started to fall a lot and trip. And then eventually I just wasn't able to stand up at all. And that was, you know, the warning signs for them to get me checked out. From there, I actually began losing more and more functionality of my body. So first it was my legs, then it was my arms, then it was pretty much everything from the neck down. To the point where I was hospitalized for six months because the fear was that my diaphragm would actually stop working, so I wouldn't be able to breathe anymore. Luckily, that didn't happen, and I was able to get out of the hospital eventually, but there was even a story in one of the local papers about what had happened to me in my condition to sort of help support my parents.

which led to someone graciously hosting me to be part of Shriners Children's Hospital of Chicago. They're a great organization. They help a lot of kids. And pretty much they were like my second family. I had the same doctors from when I was two to 20, so they literally got to see me grow up. So from there, basically, I was wheelchair-bound. They finally correctly diagnosed me. There were a few other things that they thought it might be first, but then they eventually arrived to the conclusion that I was.

that I had CIDP. And from that point forward, I was in a wheelchair. From what my mom and dad told me of my childhood, they basically said every doctor they saw, was telling them, you know, he'll never walk again. You need to be ready to support him throughout his entire life because he's going to be wheelchair-bound, and that's just his life from now on.

Now I was race Catholic, but I was, But currently I'm actually an atheist, which I know is hard to believe, but my reasoning for that is actually based on my experiences themselves. You know, throughout my entire childhood and into my adult life, you know, I was surrounded by these other kids that, you know, had it worse than me. Or, you know, and, you know, these are great kids. And some of them were literally just in accidents. and their entire future is stripped from them. And here I am, going in every single time and every single time getting better and better,

and having to live with the fact that, you know, why was I picked to be better? And then these kids were chosen to suffer. And that never really sat right with me. I felt if, you know, truly there was a benevolent higher power, it wouldn't allow for something like that to happen. And that's sort of why I, you know, I am an atheist now. It's just, it's hard for me to cope.

It almost feels like Survivor's Guiltz. I've heard people describe that before where, you know, why did I live and this other person died? It's similar in a fashion of why did I get better, but these other kids have to live their life with these disabilities. And so that's sort of where my beliefs come from. So what's interesting about my time, you know, in a wheelchair is that because it happened when I was so young, that was just, that was just life, you know. Like I know a lot of people who transition from, you know, what most people consider normal, like being able to walk and function normally and then having to go into a wheelchair, you know, like people say it's like, oh, it's the struggle.

But for me, like, since I remembered, I had always been in a wheelchair. But I never liked being in the wheelchair, I guess I could say. I would always try and figure out how to be mobile without it. So initially, when I first started moving, it was literally just crawling. Like, I guess army crawling would be like the best comparison, where you're primarily moving through just pulling yourself with your arms. And then as my condition started to get better, and I got sort of mobility back in my upper legs and my hips,

I was able to sort of like crawl on all fours. Like you'd almost see like a baby do. And that was my primary mode of transportation, like at least when I was, you know, in my house and not like in public. Until I was about, I want to say like maybe 10 or 11. And from there, that, like, right around that time frame is when it, I can't even describe it as, like, a motivation where, you know, like, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. Like, I'm going to stand up. It was just sort of, like, almost an instantaneous, like, feeling. Like, just do it. Like, just stand, you know? Like, I can't really describe it as saying, like, it's something I pushed myself to do. It sort of just popped into my head. It sort of just popped into my head. like we're going to try this and you'll be able to stand up. And from there, that's when I made the attempt to stand for the first time. And it wasn't very long, mind you. It's maybe 10, 15 seconds

at most. But going from not being able to do anything to being able to stand was obviously like a huge milestone. Because once that was there, then I could start using walkers and other like mobility devices. And as I was beginning to start to walk normally, I was able to gain enough strength back and my condition continued to improve to where I could just walk normally. So over time, as I got better, I did have to get a couple of surgeries, my ankles. And it was actually a result of basically things coming back that I had never used before. So certain, things my feet got stronger than other sides so they had to like correct it basically um and i remember like i just i hate hospitals i even hate hospitals to the day and so i went in for the surgery

they basically said okay you'll need to be in the hospital for three days post-op for recovery to you know to watch you and make sure you're okay and i went in for you know they performed the surgery i woke up the next day and i was like i want to go home and they're like well you can't go home, you know, you need to be here, et cetera. And I was like, no, I want to go home. And so the head nurse was like, okay, well, I think it was like appeasement. Like I was 16. I was an annoying teenager. They're like, okay, we'll just, we'll go through the motions just so that we can say like, nah, you got to stay here. So they take my vitals. They like check my blood work, et cetera. And they're like, we have never seen someone recover so fast from a surgery.

ever. Like your vitals are like almost to like pre-op normal levels. Like yeah, you can actually go. And like they've never seen that before. And so they called my parents and my parents were actually mad. They're like, you're supposed to be there for three days. We can't come get you. I'm like, no, you need to come. You need to come get me. I'm ready to go. And that happened twice, actually. So I had one surgery when I was 14 and then I had a second surgery when I was 17. And the same thing happened when I was 17 because, again, I did not want to be there. I wanted to go home immediately. And again, the next day, they checked my vitals.

They're like, this is like, you're good. Like, just tell us if you have any weird things happen when you go home, but like you're all set. and I got to go home basically the next day after like a major ankle surgery. So early on into my recovery, this was the point where I had function of my arms and hands. I was in a car ride where my grandmother and my family were in. And basically we were discussing the fact that I was I was basically motivated where I said, you know, I'm going to walk again. And she had mentioned, oh, it's funny that you say that

because the Virgin Mary told you that you would walk again. And that was the first time she had told me this story, but apparently when I was four, I had seen an entity above my bed, which she equated to the Virgin Mary, that told me I would walk again. So I don't really know what to make of that particular, experience, but shortly after, around the time I was six or eight, I experienced something in my

room where basically it was related to my closet. And whenever my closet door was open at night, basically if I was to wake up and look into it, it would be pitch black, but like, blacker than black. Like the, for perspective, the closet's not like a huge closet. It's not walking closet. It's maybe three feet deep. And then the clothes rack is maybe halfway into that. So the clothes are fairly forward. So you would be able to make them out. But in these experiences that I had, it was so dark, you wouldn't even be able to see like the clothes or any of the objects in the closet. And I remember distinctly that if I was, awake and looking into that darkness, it felt like it wasn't necessarily fear as much as

like actual dread. And I think there's like a big distinction between those. And at this time, obviously I wasn't fully mobile. So I was, I was able to crawl, but I wasn't able to run away. So I would go out of my way to literally pull myself out of bed from with my arms, like, face forward onto the floor, and I would crawl to my parents' room, and they had one of those larger beds where, like, it's raised off the ground enough, where I could actually go underneath it, and rather than be in my room, I would sleep on the floor underneath their bed just to feel safe. And I did that probably four or five times, I experienced that, and after a while, my parents were upset with me. They're like, you're too old to be scared of the dark. You know, you need to

sleep in your own room. And obviously, I was upset about that because I was like, there's something in there. I don't want to sleep in there. But they're like, you just have to deal with it. This is part of growing up, you know, like, it is what it is. Like, it felt like I was being watched and it wanted to do something to me. Like, I don't know what, but it, it felt like something was stalking me in a way, like, it was just, it was terrified, like, fight or flight response. And it was flight for me where I would literally just leave the room. It was different, yeah.

Like, where, like, you feel like yourself shivering, like, to your core, where it's, like, you know, the feeling where, like, you throw covers over your, like, I would actually, like, like pull the blankets over my face and like try to hide from this whatever it was. Like that kind of terrifying. And, you know, after my parents had started to, you know, say, like, be a big boy, basically, and tell me to sleep in my room, the only way, like, if it happened again, the only way I could feel better was I would, I would still get out of bed, like, still crawl across the floor and I would I would shut the closet door. If the door was open, I could not sleep. And even like, it affected me so much that, you know, I'm 33 now and I was like

six then. I can't sleep in rooms where the closet doors open to this day because of what I experienced. And to put in perspective, too, the way my bed was positioned in the room was basically the foot of my bed faced directly in front of the closet. So like if I wake up, it's like, basically like looming right at the base of my bed. And so like you just, you just feel like this thing is, is like watching and like trying to like wash over you. And so all you can do is sort of like hide under the sheets and like try to basically try to protect yourself. And so once I started shutting the door to the closet and it became a habit, I didn't really have those same feelings again for a long time. And this sort of leads into like the first major, I want to say like

all family experience where it's like my mom, my dad and myself are involved. And it still involves a closet though. So my mom has OCD and her compulsion is cleanliness. So she will go out of her way. to like completely clean the house top to bottom. Like she literally called it like clean the closets where she will take everything out, take all the racks off, like wash the floor, wash the walls, like everything. And for context, my room had hardwood floors,

including in the closet. So when they were taking everything out, and I was about 14 at this point for like time of reference, They said the closet smell like pee. And they literally told me, did you pee in your closet? I was like, of course I didn't pee in my closet. Like, what are you talking about?

And so this smell was like very prominent. So my mom fully cleans the closet, lets it dry, comes back, the smell's still there. They do this two more times. Smell doesn't go away. So my dad is, my dad's family is also Catholic. And while he's not practicing Catholic, I would say, like, of my immediate family, he's probably the most religious. So over the years, because my condition and, like, the community were in, I got a lot of, like, religious artifacts, like, crosses and Bibles and, you know, things that people thought were, like, to help me. me pray or to pray for me, et cetera. And one of those things was a picture of the Virgin Mary.

So my dad, on a whim, decided to put that picture inside the closet and let it sit overnight. And then the next day, we went to the closet and the smell was gone. and then we noticed that the picture had like a new like tear coming down the cheek of the virgin Mary from like sitting in the closet which wasn't there before and so and so like that was a big one for the family we were like okay that's weird like that is that's strange like so the picture didn't have it at all so it was just a picture of Mary would just Jesus. And then the next day, we got, we pulled the picture out. And then there was a tear coming down her eye, down her cheek. Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we will be right back. So after the

closet incident happened, basically things started to happen in the house where it was, it was, for the most part, it was like, it didn't happen to people directly, but it was like objects. So like objects would fall off walls, things would fall off the ceiling. And what's interesting about it, so the layout of my parents' house was basically there's a small hallway, which was my room, my brother's room, and then across the hall was like a bathroom, like a shared bathroom. And then adjacent to that on the other side of the bathroom wall is my parents' master bed, a bathroom. So most of the events that have happened since that point have all been in like the same area of my room where the closet was, but it's been like in the hallway or like in my parents' bathroom or in

that bathroom. So the first thing that happened, I was probably about 15 at the time. And my mom had this collective or like a collectible spice jar rack. So it was like this like artist had made like these like drawn spice jars and then it had this wooden rack that was what you would put them on as to display. So my mom had that nailed to the wall in the same hallway. Now we were on the other, it was, both of us were in the house at the time, but we were on the opposite house, a side of the house. We were talking and we just heard this huge crash and we're like, what was that? So we go over there and they're, they're brink. And they're, broken spice jars all over the floor.

And the rack that they were on was like hanging basically by one nail only. So it was like a slant. And obviously my mom's upset because like this was her like collectible thing. So she's cleaning up that. But I was like, well, how did this happen? And basically one of the nails, like the nail side that fell off. The nail itself was still in the wall. But it was bent at like a purpose.

perfect 90 degree angle. Like something bent the nail, but not the other one. And obviously, this spice rack is not like overloaded with weight. And my dad is in HVAC. So he knows like how to find studs and things like that. So it's, it was just weird. Sort of like, well, how did that happen? And this is when sort of like the family joke of like, oh, it was the ghost came up? Because I was like, oh, the ghost did this, like the same ghost that we had before. The nail is still in the wall, but it's bent 90 degrees. And it's not like, because we had to pull the nail out of the stud afterwards to get to fix the wall, basically, because my mom was like, well, I have to throw this all out now because all my jars are broken. So when my dad pulled it out, like he had to actually pull the whole nail out.

And he even said, like, how does that even happen? Like, it didn't make any sense to any of us. There was no damage to the plaster. There was no damage to the stud. There was no damage to the wall. It was just, like, the nail itself that was hanging on was bent. Like, I, and it was literally, like, 90 degrees. So to give context, too, like, these events don't happen very often.

Like, there's big gaps of time when these things happen. but they're all like localized in the same area and and like I said like I had mentioned before none of it ever seems malicious outside of breaking our stuff like that's kind of malicious but like it doesn't seem like it's trying to hurt us it's more like mischievous like it wants us to like give it attention almost when stuff happens and so the next thing that happened was actually in my my parents' bathroom, which is like basically the opposite wall of the bathroom that's next to my room. And they used to have one of those old ceiling lights with like the plastic dome covers. And so I'm not sure if you've used those or seen those before.

But they're designed in such a way where like you push it in and it's set. Like unless you purposely go up there and like twist it out. So my family is nothing but short people. Like I'm 5-5. My dad's the same height. My mom's like 5'3. And the only way for us to be able to reach this light would be to like stand on the toilet or something like that. And it was positioned in a way where it was almost directly above the toilet.

So there were a couple of times where someone would be using the toilet in that bathroom and this light cover would just fall, like fall on them. and it's not like it's not a heavy object it's very light so it's not like something that could degrade over time or like you would have to like physically impact it in some way

in order for this to come out and it happened three or four times till to the point where my parents eventually replaced the light because they thought I was a problem with the light so they replaced it with like those LEDs like

where it's like resets into the ceiling so nothing can possibly fall out. That happened a couple of times, and it wasn't like in quick succession either. This was like, it might happen one month, and then it could be six months later or it could be two years later, but it was always the same light,

and it would be the same thing. In fact, if I remember correctly, they actually changed the light for a different light that was like the same style where it had a plastic cover, and that one also did it after replacing it. So it was basically like the same situation a couple of times. That was like the last major thing I remember happening before I moved out of my parents' house.

And there was about three or four years where I was on my own. I don't remember anything happening because, I mean, I was working a lot. I was never home anyways. So there wasn't really a lot of time for me to experience anything on my own. but during COVID, I was working in the hospitality industry and they laid us off, basically. So I was in a position where I had to move back home. So I've been home now for like two years, two and a half years, and things have started again. And so prior to talking to you, I had asked my mom when I had sent you the email, I said,

hey, do you remember if anything with the ghost happened when I wasn't here? And she's like, why are you asking me this question? And I was like, I just want to know. Like, if I was, because I told her, I was like, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the thing that's haunted and it's not the house. And she's like, no, I don't remember anything happening

since you've been gone. So about, I want to say it's probably like five months ago. So my, this is back in the bathroom that's closest to my old room. They had one of those big vanity mirrors that's like, you know, a 60, 80 pound mirror. That mirror has been hanging in that bathroom for like 15 years, like a long time. So it's about six months ago. It was about like two in the morning. I hear this big crash.

And my mom wakes up early because she works for an elementary school. So she wakes up early. She does like some cursory cleaning before she leaves for work. So I was like, well, maybe something happens. So I like open the door right away to my room. And I'm like, what happened? And I just see like mirror shards all over the floor. And I was like, what happened?

And so then I hear both of my parents come running at this point towards me. And they're like, did you like, what happened? They asked me what happened. So no one was near this bathroom. I technically was because my room, I basically, I'm using my brother's room now, my brother's old room. And I was like, my door was closed. And I heard this and I thought something happened to you. I was just checking to see if you're okay.

And so like we're cleaning up the glass. And basically the way the mirror was anchored to the wall is it was like one of those heavy duty wall anchors where it's like metal. and then like it contacts another metal like lip that's like basically like 10 screws across the whole thing like it's designed to hold the heavy weight basically the adhesive that hooked up to the anchor that was on the back

of the mirror that hooks into the anchor on the wall was completely it just like gave out like it didn't look like you know like if something gives out over time and it's like rips it was like completely clean. And so the anchor for the mirror was still attached to the wall

when we found it. And the mirror just completely detached from it and fell onto the floor. I know people might say well, you know, it's 15 years old, but I worked in hotels for 10 years. And obviously we have bathrooms with huge mirrors on them.

When they set up mirrors like that, they are designed to where they're don't come down unless you purposely like remodel and take it down yourself. Like there's no way that that stuff because obviously that's a huge liability if a mirror falls on someone when they're in the bathroom.

But like this looked like it was a clean separation. Like there was no residue on the anchor part that was still on the wall. It was like completely clean metal. And it was just like, it was like poup and just fell on the floor. There was actually a big shard of glass left over that had the line of adhesive that was attached to the anchor that was like completely

still there but like separated and there was no adhesive on the actual anchor itself so it's not like the adhesive disappeared it was just like a completely detached from the metal part and fell yeah i i'm not an expert for sure but i'm i'm fairly certain it is not designed to do that And since then, they've gotten a replacement mirror, and they even asked the guys that installed it. They're like, hey, is this something that frequently happens? And they're like, no. And they just automatically were like, oh, they must have done a bad job then, because there's no way that should have happened. And it's like, it was up for like 15 years.

Like, I don't think it would just magically. Like, if it was a bad job, I would have assumed it would have taken a lot less time than 15 years to fall. So I was able to talk to Rob's dad about some of this stuff. Originally, I wanted to talk to him just about the things that went down in the house, but I was also very curious to hear his interpretation of everything because Rob certainly alluded to the fact that his family had very different interpretations of some of the things that happened while he was growing up and related to his recovery. And I found it very interesting.

I think that there were some things that came up in this conversation that I didn't expect. And I even think that there were some things that came up that Rob might have not really even known about himself, believe it or not. And I'm not sure if that ended up changing the way he thinks about things, but I think there were aspects that he maybe had never even heard before. So this is my conversation with Rob's dad. Basically, I just wanted to ask you this whole Virgin Mary thing, Do you remember when that happened? And if so, how did you hear about it? There was a church in, I forget what town it was,

Berwyn or Cicero, and it was a Greek Orthodox church. And there was sightings of a crying Virgin Mary portrait, an oil portrait. And they said the tears would come out red. and if you went to the I forget what they call them, the Orthodox minister, they would take a Q-tip and rub it on the portrait

partially of the tear and then they would anoint the individual and it would give them, you know, some hope or strength or possibly cause them, create a miracle. So we figured it was a beautiful thing. We really had nothing to lose.

So, and that was probably, I forget when Robert was probably about two years old. So yeah, we visited the church and I think we actually had a copy of the actual portrait. And it was pretty, everybody

just kind of just felt chills down their spine when you visited it. There was quite a few people there. It was pretty interesting. Wait, so, okay, I didn't know about that. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and now I'm realizing my question was vague too.

So that was a new virgin Mary thing. What about, he told me that his grandmother told him that he saw the Virgin Mary in his room at night, and she told him that he would walk again. Okay, yeah, Robert said that too. Yeah, yeah. His grandparents are very religious, and so are we. Yeah, I remember that too. That was a while ago. When did that happen? And can you tell me about when you heard it? Well, about the same time, I want to say, you know, he was, he was still pretty young. So it had to be, it was in this house. It had to be he was probably two or three years old. And what, can you just tell me, he was pretty quiet about it.

Can you tell me your version of that story? Oh, kind of the same thing that, I think that, you know, he would be sleeping and he would, he would wake up and tell us that he felt like he had a visitation. And I'm trying to remember if this was before or after we visited the Greek Orthodox Church, probably about the same time. You know, it might have, well, I can't remember the actual account if it was before or after, but kind of along the same lines where, you know, he felt that, yeah, he was being visited. and yeah, that, you know, he was given hope by, you know, Mother Mary.

Did he ever tell you this? He spoke to, no, well, not so much of me directly, but more so to his mother and his, you know, his grandma. Yeah, do you know what he would say to them? Or, like, said to either his mom or his grandparents, like, when he would wake up, like, what he saw, you know? Yeah, no, I don't remember the exact specifics of it. that was a long time ago. That was 30 years ago. I don't know if you would mind, but I know your wife is camera shy,

but would you mind asking her if she remembers to refresh your memory of what he said? Let me go ask her and see if she remembers more about it than I do. Yeah, she doesn't have to come on camera or anything, but if she remembers, maybe she could jog your memory. Sorry, our family's a little kind of, round trip like this all the time with everything. No worries. I mean,

I don't know if you could hear that at all. But like, he said he doesn't remember. Like, basically, was your grandma still alive? Yeah, she's actually still alive today. Oh, okay. Yeah. It would be worth... I might be able to convince her. I could try calling her.

Yeah. Or you should give her a call and see what she remembers from it half. I mean, if you are inclined to, I'd just be curious. Like, don't you want to know? I mean, honestly, when my dad just told you about the Greek Orthodox Church, I didn't even know about that until right now. That's crazy. Yeah. Seems like interesting, like through line.

Yeah, because now I really want to know, like, you found out later, so it's like, did you wake up and tell somebody that? Like, you know what I'm saying? Or did somebody pull it out of you? There's so many different ways it could go. I like I said like even when my dad said it was so long ago like especially for me like if I was only three or four all right he's okay yeah no um his mother said she distinctly remembers uh Robert you know getting up one morning and saying and she said also that it was after we had gone to the greek orthodox church that had the crying virgin mary portrait that uh he was visited by mary and she told him

I don't know, indirectly or I don't know how they did it, but that he would walk again. And his mother remembers Robert telling her that. And she said it was after that we visited the portrait of the crying Virgin Mary. And I can't remember what town. I want to see either Cicero or Berwyn. But I remember the minister anointing him, like I said, they would take a cue tip and swab the portrait where the tears were coming out. and they would have to do the, you know, the crucifix, you know, on his forehead. And she said it was like shortly after that, either that night or sometime a little, you know, soon after, you know, the subsequent days that he felt like he had a visitation from Mother Mary.

That's crazy. I know. It's making my spine tingle right now talking about it. It's very emotional. And then there was also another Mary thing involving the closet. Were you the one that put the Virgin Mary in the closet when it was like smelling or something? Do you know about that? Oh, yeah.

There was something going on with, yeah. Was that your closet or your brothers? It was my closet. Yeah. There was some kind of an odor in the closet. And I don't know if we put. I don't know if we put the statue or the little portrait. The picture, yeah, yeah.

And we set in the closet and I think was it then the smell was gone? Yeah. Yeah, I remember that too. Do you remember any of the other kind of spooky things that happened in the house? I heard a lot of weird stories just now. You know, every so often we feel like we might maybe hear noises or bumps in the night or other things that are, I don't even know how to describe it, not necessarily supernatural, just strange coincidences

and things that have been moved, you know, stuff's getting knocked over by accident and things that happened that you really can't explain. You know, lamps or, you know, pictures hanging on the wall while a sudden are laying on the floor. Stuff like that. The spice rack and we had a mirror fall off a wall about four months ago.

It's just, I don't know, know if it's just bad luck coincidence or what it is but yeah on occasion we do have stuff like that happen well thank you so much for talking to me okay all right you're welcome have a good one so as the interview went on rob and i ended up talking about some other things that have happened to him that are completely unrelated to everything that went down when he was a kid and it turns out he actually had some experiences later on while working at a hotel and I'm going to include this story. I think it's in some ways related to his belief.

And quite frankly, I find it very interesting. But I also feel compelled to put some kind of trigger warning on here because it does include descriptions of suicide. So I just want to give anybody a heads up that does not want to hear that topic for whatever reason. You could go ahead and skip ahead. But he does briefly describe these things in detail. I was 25 at the time, and I was a front desk supervisor.

And we had an unfortunate situation where basically a guest committed suicide in one of our rooms. And it was a really, it wasn't, it was dark the way he did it. I don't know how much detail you want. but basically he had hung himself in the room. And in hotel rooms, I'm sure you've stayed in many. They are specifically designed so that that doesn't happen. Yeah, but that's literally a design choice. So like the next time if you're in a hotel room,

if you look around the ceiling, there's almost never anything that you can hang off of on purpose because of that reason. So you may be wondering how he did it. Well, in the hotel I worked at, the closets had a really weird design. So basically there was a wall where like a track door, like a sliding door, could sit on. But it didn't go all the way to the ceiling. There was like a like a two or three foot gap between the top where the track runs and then where the seat.

ceiling is. So basically he put the rope over that opening, had the closet open, and then was on his knees and like leaned into it. So sometimes police get

a little too friendly with hotel staff and they basically told us like all the details that we like literally should not know. So they were like, yeah, we found the like Home Depot receipts of where he got the rope from. We found, you know, like, he apparently took a bunch of pills and drank a whole bottle of vodka before he did it.

So basically, like, the way he did it was he set himself up and then because of all the stuff he took, he passed out into it and then strangled himself that way. But before he did that, the other thing he did was he threw the deadbolt on the hotel door. And then he also took spare rope and, like, basically took the deadbolt and, like, tied it against the wall. so like you couldn't open the door. So like he, he was adamant about doing this. Like he went out of his way so he couldn't be rescued. So the next morning, obviously it's past checkout time, so we go to check on him. Well, we are not able to open a dead bolted door.

Like with a key, you have to actually drill the door open. So that's what we had to do. And that's when we found him. So obviously, police come. They handled their part. We handle our part. We take the room out of service. And then my job manager's like, we'll get the room clean before we sell it to anybody, which before anyone can occupy it. And we're like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. So that whole process happens. And it's the first night that we're selling the room again. And the first person, so like the staff knows what happened in that room. So it was like an unspoken role that we treated that room as a last cell. So it's like, The very last person to come to the hotel is the person that gets stuck with that room. So that situation happens.

And the lady we send up, we're like, you know, we're like, oh, yeah, here's your room key. You know, let us know if you need anything, et cetera, et cetera. So she goes up and within 10, 15 minutes, we get a phone call right away. She's like, hey, there's nothing physically wrong with the room, but I don't like this room. Like there's something with it. I just can't stay here. Can I get another room? We're like, well, you know, unfortunately, like we can't do anything.

She's like, that's okay. I'll just go to a different hotel. And this pattern happens for a week. Every single person we send up there either immediately tells us, I can't stay in this room. There's something about this room that, like, I don't know what it is. I can't stand it. And then in addition to that, the people who, do stay in the room are writing bad reviews about the room. And we got a couple of comments

where they're like, something's wrong with your bathroom doors. They keep opening in the middle of the night. Or like, we keep hearing noises in the rooms or something wrong. So we're getting all these bad rooms. Like, what's going on? Like, I was like, rooms haunted. That's what's going on. So the, a lot of the housekeeping staff are immigrants from Mexico, including the housekeeping manager. So she goes out of her way and puts the room out of service without telling our general manager on their lunch break, because all the housekeepers do one lunch break together, they go into the room and hold a prayer service, like a literal prayer service. And then they keep the room out of service and keep a Bible open in the room overnight.

The next day, she puts the room back in service, takes the Bible out, no more complaints. So Rob, I'm a little confused because in the very beginning you told me that you're an atheist. Not only that, you're an atheist as a direct result of these stories that you're going to tell me from your life. But I can't help but notice that almost all of these stories revolve around a religious person doing something in a way that it seems like you believe had an effect. I think almost all of the stories involve that. And you yourself had this miraculous recovery from this debilitating disease. I guess I'm just confused because all of these stories seem to support the opposite side that you claim to believe in. I can't help but notice a contradiction here.

So I guess I'm just wondering, like, do you believe in this stuff? Like what is it that you believe in? So my personal perspective aside, I think religion itself is, like, if you think back to ancient civilizations, a lot of things we know now as science were attributed to religion, right? And I think it's just a matter of perspective. There are still things like to this day that we don't understand. We don't understand what happens after we die. We don't understand like what happens when we see these things because happens.

half the time people don't believe you. So I feel like religion is a way to give you perspective. And sort of like an explanation of what's happening to you in a community that will believe your stories. And you know, like I'm by no means an expert, but my experiences to me prove that this stuff exists. And you know, if religion makes you comfortable and helps you explain these things, like by all means,

do what you need to do. But for me, like, I know these things are real. I don't necessarily need religion to sort of help me or guide me in those beliefs. It's hard to describe my personal recovery as anything but miraculous, right? But it's, placing that label on me feels almost like a burden in a lot of ways,

Because, you know, people will look to my situation and be like, that is proof of God exists, right? And as an atheist, like, that's hard for me to swallow in a way because you're putting me on this pedestal that I can't possibly, you know, guarantee, like, yes, God did this to me. For all I know, like, I could just be lucky. Or, you know, I could have some weird variant of whatever happened to me because a lot of the things that happened to me

don't line up with like the traditional diagnosis of CIDP. In terms of like the thing I saw in my closet and the thing is breaking, you know, I believe in the existence of spirits and ghosts and things of that nature. Yeah, to me, you know, like we're basically like humans are almost like machines, right? Like we have a computer which is our brain,

we take in oxygen, we're, combustion engine. Engines are still hot after you turn them off, right? So that could just be, you know, residual energy. To people that are religious, I think they don't like the idea of ghosts because that means you're not guaranteed to go to the afterlife, right? Depending on your religion. Those people are seen as, you know, well, they're demons because you can only have demons if you're not in heaven or hell you're a demon or that means you're stuck in purgatory which means like you did something wrong and that's another reason i don't like the concept of being considered a miracle because if i do then they're like this this is a gift right but then it adds

moral implications to my life so if i if i sin is god going to take that away from me am i going to lose my ability to walk that's that's like something i have to live with And it's not, I don't know how else to describe it, but it's, so I'm a gamer. I don't know if you played Dead Space before. But the remake just came out, I just replayed it. And there's actually a line at the very end of the game that I found to be very profound to my situation. And I don't know the exact wording of it, but basically they say a miracle, to those that aren't ready is a nightmare.

And that I think describes exactly how I feel about my situation. I don't know what caused it. I don't know why I'm better and other people have to suffer. And now I have to deal with those implications of if it is a miracle, if I do something bad, is it going to go away? Or do I have to live up to certain other people's standards to make sure that I deserve this miracle and like why was I chosen and somebody else not. All right. I want to thank Rob so much for telling us that story. I also want to thank his dad

for talking to me as well. This was a really interesting one to me. My main interest in making this show is basically curiosity of how people end up reacting to these things that they witness with their own eyes that implies big changes. to our understanding of reality and the rules of our universe. It's always interesting to hear how people end up reshaping their beliefs or not reshaping them at all.

I think for me personally, I always find it a little sad and bizarre when a person is completely atheist except for believing in dark spirits. and evil. I feel like that's such a grim way to exist to believe that there's nothing out there except for evil. And while I personally do not think that's true, and I also think that that's a very

grim way to go through life, I also understand how Rob ended up feeling that way. Even though that quote is from a video game. I think it's very profound and really helped me understand how growing up witnessing the things that he did and going through the things that he did ended up shaping his worldview into what it is today. I think if I've learned anything from the making of this show, it's that you can never really understand what's going on inside of another person. You'll never fully understand their perspective. no matter how much you think you could put yourself in their shoes. Anyway, thank you to Rob for telling us that story.

Thank you to his dad one more time. And once again, thank you for listening. This episode was called The Miracle Child, and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is hosted and an executive produced by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal and North Americans, editing and engineering by Theo Schaefer.

The artwork for our show is by Coltysack Studios. This is an independent show, so please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends. If you want to hear more and support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash otherworld. We have a bunch of bonus episodes up there, and there's much more to come. If you want to follow us on social media, we're at Otherworld Pod on Instagram and Twitter. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal,

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