Beth Parson's Toy

In the old days, a lot of the time little kids were buried with their favorite toy. It could be anything--a wooden sailboat, a little baseball bat, an old doll, anything the kid loved.

Beth Parson's toy--a ragdoll with two blue button eyes--was buried with her when she died, just like that. Two weeks after the funeral, when her father found the doll laying on the front porch, he decided there must have been a mistake and quietly buried re-buried it. A week and a half of that, when Beth's mother found the doll--dirty and wet--on the floor of Beth's old playroom, she brought it to the family priest, and together they blessed it and buried it again, in the little girl's plot.

When they found the doll the third time, sitting up on Beth's old bed, there was a little note: "It's too cold and dark in there. I don't like it. Why won't let me come home?"