I used to believe that any gravestones in the churchyard with big railings round them were for people who had been in prison and they still had to be behind bars even in death

M

i read something in a magazine as a kid about spontaneous combustion that really worried me. the article said it was more likely to happen when it was dry outside. it also said something about how people who spontaneously combusting sometimes completely disappearing with only a few ashes and possibly their singed or melted shoes left behind.

an old lady who lived behind us used to sleep out on a screened-in porch during the spring and summers. for some reason i thought that since she was sleeping outside and spending so much time outside that she was more susceptible to spontaneously combusting. every time i went to her house i was a little afraid of finding only some charred shoes on her porch.

minmin

when I was about 5 years old I used to believe anything you buried would go to hevan. So when my papaw died, I buried a pink sparkly bracelet in my backyard with a note saying : from allison. The next morning when I checked to see if it was still there and discovered it was, I was heart broken.

kinda sad

I used to believe that my grandparents (who had passed away) would fly around to spy in the window to make sure my cousins and I were behaving ourselves when someone would tell me they were watching over us.

just me

When I was five, my Grandad died. A few months later, my cousin had a baby. When I asked my Mum why my cousin's baby had been born after my Grandad died, she said it was because when someone in a family died, someone was born to replace them. The next time there was a birth in the family, I was terrified that someone else was going to die!

Alison

My sister, at about 4 was sitting on the swing crying. I went out to see what was wrong ahd she said she was crying because she was worried about dying.
In my 9 year old wisdom, I told her that she still had 96 more years to live, because you die at 100. I then told her that I only had 91 years left and mum and dad had a lot less than that. She burst into fresh tears at this, saying "You'll all be dead and I'll be alone...."

pete, from Brissie Australia

When I was little I thought that everybody died when they were twenty because that was what I could count up to.

Vicky

When I was about 3 & attending my grandmother's laying-out (at her home), I went over to her & touched her cheek. I did it VERY gently, & so got the erroneous impression that dead people were very soft--&, so, had apparently had their bones taken out! Being young enough to make this mistake I was neither surprised nor dismayed by it, & of course eventually learned better...but I remember thinking this was true for a long time.

Becky

My great grandmother died when I was 9. I didn't go to the funeral because I thought she'd be a skeleton.

Angela

The first time any family member of mine died I was 6. My parents said that we had to go to a "wake" so when we got there, I went an kneeled on the pew and quietly at first said..."Uncle Joe, wake up." When he didn't, I started yelling, and got up and shook him. I was trying to "wake" him up.

kristi

I used to believe that in movies, when people died...they really died. i thought that they would get paid a large amount of money, and then say, 5 years later they would do the movie and die.

melani

I thought dead people were buried in laundry baskets. My mom's Daddy Ted died of cancer when I was four. My mother was trying to explain what we did with the dead. In her explanation of putting people in the ground she mentioned the casket, I thought she said basket. So for many years I thought her Daddy Ted was curled up in the ground in a laundry basket.

Alyssa

My Mom and I used to drive up to another town in California to visit some friends of hers quite often. On the way, we would always pass the same Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. In the window was propped a life-size mannequin of Colonel Sanders, the company's mascot. The first time we drove past it, my mother, thinking herself to be hilarious, told me that the mannequin was actually the REAL Colonel Sander's mummified body, preserved, stuffed, and put up for display. I believed this for many years afterward, always staring with amazement as we drove by, wondering why the body had not decayed yet, and squeezing my eyes shut when the glare of the dead Colonel got to be too much for me to handle. Thanks, Mom.

Ivy Feather

When I was really little (5 or so) I didn't know that dead people were buried. I thought that they were actually put INSIDE the tombstones and were all...folded up. Then we passed an old graveyard near my house with a tombstone broken in half...I started to wonder why nobody had fixed it to keep the body from falling out.

Carolyn

I used to believe that if you were stabbed then you died instantly; no matter what. But if you removed the knife then you came back to life.

Dave

One day me and my grandma passed by a cemetary and i asked her what it was and she said it was where they buried dead peoples bodies. So after that i thought that they buried the bodies and the family kept the head!

=P

I was 5 years old when my 96 year old great grandmother died. As my mom was trying to explain this to me, I remember asking her "If they scooped her bones off the floor." For some reason I thought that when you die, you are always in bed, and you instantly turn into a skeleton, and your bones fall to the floor! My mom had a tough time with that one!

JILL

When i was about 3 or 4 i knew nothing about death except what i saw on tv. And most deaths on tv meant blood and gore. So my great grandma died and my dad was a pallbearer and when i saw my dad come out carrying the casket i started screaming and crying, because i thought he was gonna get covered in blood. and he had to get someone else to take his place and come sit with me because i didnt want my daddy to get blood on him.

kk

When my son was 5 years old, his great uncle died. I told him we were going to "a wake" for Uncle Steve. Naturally when we arrived at the funeral home, my son was very upset when he couldn't "awake" Uncle Steve. It was very, very sad.

Michelle

i use to believe that you died on your birthday, because they never say on the news that so and so died at age 64 3/4 they just say 64. So i was scared of my birthdays and just wanted the day over so that I knew I would live another year.

Patrick