Original subtitles

My son was remembering events that

did not happen in his life.

And he said, are we going to see my old dad?

When his old dad came back from the war,

the house had to be dark and quiet.

When he would get upset or angry,

he would pound his head on the floor.

And he started saying, when my old dad was in the war,

his friends had to pick him up and carry him to safety.

And he said that there was blood spilling.

Then he said he was in a car driving like this on a road

and that his car wrecked.

That was the moment that I realized that Riley might

be remembering a past life.

I thought that they would think she's crazy.

Am I really hearing what I'm hearing?

I was convinced that my brother's soul had come back

to me and my son.

My name is Joanna, and I have two sons named Riley and Aiden.

My two sons are 6 and 3.

Sacramento is a really great place to live.

It's the capital of California.

There's about 500,000 people here.

We live in a smaller area.

When you go downtown, it feels like a big city,

but it's a great place to raise kids.

Hi, I'm Nick.

I am Riley and Aiden's father.

I'm an attorney.

I work with abused and neglected kids or children

at risk of abuse and neglect.

My work deals with the most difficult things

you can imagine that happen to children.

And so I've heard lots of very difficult stories from kids.

I am a marriage and family therapist.

I work with kids 0 to 21 and I see a lot of trauma

and a lot of families that are struggling.

So I'm more careful about how I parent and how I'm

raising the boys so that we create a loving environment.

We had actually been told that we weren't

going to be able to have kids.

I had some abdominal problems.

And they never figured out what it was.

I was definitely afraid because I didn't understand what was

going on with me physically.

It was it was a shock to us.

And I think we were both trying to adjust to that.

Nick was in law school.

I was in grad school.

And our plan was to start trying after we graduated.

My OB said try now because it could take up to a year.

So we started trying and we were pregnant within a month.

We were, like, in shock.

And we just stared at each other.

And he hugged me.

And I hugged him.

And we were like, oh my gosh.

What just happened?

Riley was gorgeous when he was born.

He came out, he looked perfect.

He had this beautiful little face.

He was loving.

He was very sweet.

And he started talking really young

and had a great vocabulary.

He was always comfortable with older folks.

Even as a baby, he was very engaging to people.

We noticed Riley was having a hard time sleeping,

I think, in the hospital.

He was a horrible sleeper.

He always was.

He'd sleep about 20 minutes and then wake up screaming.

I remember Nick and I looking at each other one night.

And we're like, what have we done?

This is just so exhausting.

We never thought it would be like this.

We were exhausted a lot and fussy as parents,

because he'd wake up.

When he was about three or four,

he would wake up and be having night terrors.

He would wake up in the middle of the night screaming.

And we would go in and realize that he was not awake.

And so we would sit there with him until he settled back

in the bed.

I remember feeling just sort of at a loss for what to do.

I ended up being hard on myself because I thought

I was doing something wrong.

I'd say probably four or five times out of the week he comes

into our bed and we're not really sure why.

And then one day, I think we were driving,

and he said something like, are we going to see my old dad?

Nick and I kind of looked at each other and we laughed.

Oh, haha.

And then I made a joke.

I kind of hit Nick on the shoulder.

I said, he just called you old.

He said, no.

I'm not saying you're old.

I'm talking about my old dad.

And then we were very shocked.

He started giving more details about his old dad.

It would be in the car ride.

I'd pick him up from daycare and say, oh, how was your day?

And he'd say, my old dad used to ask me that all the time.

And are you going to take me to see my old dad?

And then he would say things like, thingamajigger and wonky.

And I'd say, oh, where'd you learn that word?

Oh, my old dad.

It was at least one conversation a day

he would mention his old dad.

For me, I'm like, well, I'm your dad,

so what's this about?

I just wanted to hear what he had to say.

I think sometimes it would come up for him when I would ask him

to do something.

And the response would be, well, my old dad wouldn't

make me do that stuff.

I said, well, he's not here right now.

I thought, OK, what's going on here?

Because for months he's been talking about this old dad.

I sort of freaked out because I thought

there's way more to this than we thought.

Nick just said, there's nothing more to it.

Don't read so much into it.

As he gave me more detail, then I

started to feel confused and worried

about what was going on for him.

Centennial is a city southeast of Denver.

Centennial is great because of its close proximity to Denver.

Centennial was formed 15 years ago.

There's a lot of kids in the neighborhood,

has great schools, lots of parks,

walking trails, community centers

that are good for families to have around.

My name is Trenny.

I have four children-- one girl and three boys.

My pregnancy with Noah was probably the easiest out

of the four.

I gained very little weight, ate super healthy, jogging

and walking up until the day he was born.

Noah was a very hard headed and loving baby.

He was just a happy-go-lucky, free spirited

little boy.

Fun to be around.

Fun to play with.

He walked at about nine months

and just took off running.

When he was 18 months old, he jumped

on a battery-powered four-wheeler

and took off across the cul-de-sac in his diaper.

He just-- he was all boy.

Noah was very much a rebel.

Very stubborn.

Definitely had his own agenda from day one.

When he would get upset or angry,

he would pound his head on the floor.

I remember telling Noah not go down the slide when

my daughter, his sister, was still

sitting at the bottom of it.

And he looked at me and laughed and did it anyway.

And then his teeth went into her head

and she ended up with stitches.

Going into toddler and preschool,

he had some very bad speech impediments.

And he could not speak clearly.

And it was very hard for people to understand him.

My mom had a really hard time understanding him.

I even had a hard time.

When Noah was around three years old,

I was driving and had my daughter with me.

And he kept looking at me in the rear view mirror trying

to get my attention.

I was totally tuned out, totally ignoring him.

I just thought he was being a kid because they'll say Mom,

Mom, Mom, a dozen times.

All of a sudden, my 3-year-old son glares at me in the mirror

and he says, dammit, Hanny, listen to me.

Listen to me.

I had to pull over because my toddler just

swore at me.

And to hear that name come out of my son's mouth really

shook me up.

I was at work and Trenny called me and she was crying.

And I said, what is wrong?

And she said, you're not going to believe what just happened.

The last time I heard someone call me Hanny would have been

before my brother's passing.

No one else called her Hanny--

not her friends, not her dad, not me.

It was a name that Craig had for Trenny and called her that.

My brother died in 1993 and Noah was born in 1998.

So there's no way anyone would've told Noah what

my nickname was as a child.

Hanny.

When he said damn it, Hanny,

it was crystal clear.

His voice lowered and it sounded a little spooky.

Listen to me.

The hard noises in the back of his throat like g,

c, those things, he could not say.

So for him to actually make a sound

with a g in the back of his throat was very shocking to me.

Listen to me.

I don't even know what was going through my mind.

I actually started to shake and I cried.

And while I'm doing that, my daughter's in the back seat.

And she said, why are you calling Mommy Hanny?

And he looked at her and he said, because she is Hanny.

And he looked back at me and he said, you know you're Hanny.

Clearly, it was an emotional moment for her.

I could hear it in her voice when she called me.

But I did not think that there was a connection with his uncle

Craig at the moment.

I tried to explain the situation to her,

and I think she was a little in disbelief at what I was saying,

maybe because he did have poor speech.

But I knew what I had heard.

There is no way that Noah could have known those words

because we never talked about it.

When Noah was 3, I didn't

think he had a concept of what death actually was.

And I didn't feel it was appropriate to discuss with him

how his uncle had died, because it was somewhat violent.

To hear that name come out of my son's mouth,

it really shook me up.

But I could have never predicted what happened next.

I was super excited when we found out

that we were pregnant with Riley, because just

a few months before that we were told we weren't going

to be able to have kids.

Soon after we brought him home, we

noticed he had some difficulty with sleeping.

It was it really exhausting few months.

I remember feeling really lost and confused.

I started thinking, is he mentally ill?

Is he hallucinating, seeing or hearing things?

It was probably one of the first places my brain went.

But I also knew that he was probably too young for that,

because I work in the mental health field.

I remember specifically one night,

me and Riley were in his room.

And then he started saying, when my old dad was in the war,

he used to have this old uniform,

and he wore this old hat.

And it was gray.

And he got stabbed in the shoulder.

And his friends had to pick him up and carry him to safety

because he almost died.

And he said that there was blood spilling out of his shoulder.

And they couldn't stop the blood,

so they were trying to put clothes and stuff on the wound.

I was shocked.

I didn't know what to believe.

I just let him continue talking because I thought,

what is he going to say next?

He described them as looking tired and having smoke

on their face.

He describes them as having blood on their uniforms.

He said that when his old dad came back from the war,

the house had to be dark and quiet.

And if he made noise, he would get in trouble.

He described his old dad as very sensitive from when

he came back from war.

I remember feeling devastated, because I thought,

why should any 3-year-old have these images in his head?

I'm a little bit more skeptical, I think, of things.

To me, Riley has a very powerful imagination.

It was more like his creative mind working.

I was very much like that when I was a kid, too.

It really tortured me.

I had a difficult time sleeping that night

because I thought, why is my 3-year-old thinking about war

and blood and his dad being injured

and an environment where it had to be very quiet and sterile?

Nick is an awesome dad.

He's very easygoing.

We never watch any adult programs around Riley.

We were very careful with that.

We always had some kind of kid show on.

So I started asking all of our friends.

When Riley's been at your house, have you watched any adult TV

around him? No, no, no.

All the answers were no.

So I went to a friend who's a marriage and family therapist.

If somebody that knew him for a long time

and sort of knew our lifestyle and how we live,

hoping that she would at least maybe say, no,

don't even worry about it.

He's fine.

So I just reached out to her and I said, hey, you know,

Riley started talking about this old dad.

Do you think I should be worried?

And the look on her face was like, yeah,

you should be worried.

You might need to take him to the doctor.

There might be something wrong with him.

I just broke down in tears.

And I called Nick immediately.

If you're a therapist, any time somebody tells you

something that's--

maybe it looks a little bit different,

they think mental illness.

Didn't want to hear that.

I didn't think Riley was crazy.

He's not crazy in a clinical sense.

He's crazy like a little boy is crazy.

I was concerned.

I felt alone.

I was afraid to tell people because I thought that they

would think he's crazy.

My son Noah was happy and healthy and stubborn and

funny and it was such a delight to have a son.

My daughter would listen to any direction

that you gave her and followed it,

but Noah always had his own agenda and doing his own things

and not listening to us.

He actually had no memory of saying any of those things,

and he was right back to Noah with the speech problems.

I chalked this behavior up to him just

being a very hard-headed boy.

Then another thing happened.

We were watching TV and there was a bunch of planes

and helicopters flying over.

Noah pointed and said, that's a spy plane.

He did not have his stutter.

He did not mispronounce words.

He was using and saying all consonants properly.

I said, you don't know what a spy plane is.

And he said, I do too know what a spy plane is because my daddy

took me to see one.

I asked him about the spy plane that he said

his daddy had taken him to see.

He did say it was black.

I called my husband and I asked him had he taken Noah anywhere

to go see any black planes, specifically spy planes?

And he said no.

He had no idea what I was talking about.

Maybe he had seen story books, maybe

he had seen a movie, because little boys have fantasies

about those things.

And it would be natural for children

to imagine in their mind that they had actually been in one.

My father was in the Marines.

He was a lieutenant.

And my brother had been stationed with him and my mom

over in Okinawa during Vietnam.

So I called my dad and asked him if he had ever heard of a spy

plane.

And he said yes he had, that one came on base

and he had taken my brother to see it.

And when I asked him what color it was, he said it was black.

Noah's father had not taken him to see a spy plane.

Craig's father had.

There are no pictures of my dad in the military at all

in my house.

There's no pictures of my brother living in Okinawa.

There was none of that in the house.

He kept saying, but I was there with my daddy.

My daddy was there with me.

He took me to this plane.

It wasn't like he was imagining that he had been in a plane

somewhere, but he was very specific that his daddy had

taken him to that plane.

There is no way that Noah could have known

about the spy plane and that my brother had gone to go see

a spy plane with our father.

And my dad was living out of state at the time,

so he had very little contact with the kids.

So he would have not ever said something

about this story or anything.

My dad actually had to stop and think when I called and asked

him about it.

I felt confused.

It was just a lot to process.

I started to feel like there was some inexplicable connection

between Noah and Craig, but I was

shocked by what he said next.

My six-year-old son Riley

started talking about his old dad

from the moment he could talk.

He gave me details about his old dad coming home from the war

and what that was like for him.

I reached out to a friend and my worst fear happened.

She thought that there was something wrong with him.

I felt worried and confused and scared.

The logical part of my brain knew

that it wasn't mental illness.

I've worked with chronically mentally ill kids and adults

for 16 years.

Yes, there are cases where young children

do hear voices and respond.

But it is so rare.

My fear was that he was going to be different

and that people would treat him differently.

I never really thought about past lives,

but then I started doing research

and I contacted this doctor and told her Riley's story.

She seemed to think that it was a past life.

I wasn't that sure.

Riley described his house as kind of light

before his dad went to war.

And then when dad came home from the war,

it was that it was dark.

His dad needed the house to be dark, like the curtains

couldn't be open.

There couldn't be any lights on.

He described things before the war as in fast motion

and after the war that things were in slow motion.

And he had to be quiet.

And if him and his brother ran through the house

and made noise, his dad would scream and yell.

So it really needed to be very quiet and physically very dark.

I immediately thought he was describing PTSD.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, usually when

people have something traumatic happen to them,

they have flashbacks or nightmares.

And so generally, people that are going through this

want things quiet or dark or they want to be left alone.

There is no way a three-, four-year-old could describe

PTSD like that, without having maybe experienced it.

That was the moment that I realized that Riley might

be remembering a past life.

It's not what I believe, necessarily.

But Riley, it's very real to him.

And he was really little when he was describing it.

So it was fascinating to hear him have all of these details.

But it makes me a little bit sad that he has this memory

of something that was hard.

I was heartbroken when Riley was telling me

that his old dad was mean to him.

Which guy am I?

And Nick does not need a quiet house.

He's fine with the boys running around playing and being silly

and being loud.

I came as far as I can.

The boys adore their dad.

I was very interested to hear what he

had to say about those things.

I wanted to hear more about these details as they arose.

Some of the stuff he described sounded almost like Civil War

era or World War I era.

And I don't know where those would have come from.

I have no idea why, but I just said, does your old dad

have a name?

I was not expecting him to say a name.

My son called me by a nickname only my brother used.

Hanny.

Then he remembered seeing a plane that my brother had only

seen.

I was really confused and worried

about what was going on.

When Noah was around 4, Noah's dad and I

had taken the kids out to eat.

And we'd already ordered our food.

We were just sitting there having normal conversation.

The kids were drawing on the kids' menu.

And Noah abruptly stands up on the booth

and holds his arms up in a big circle.

And he said, when I was here before, I died.

And I asked him, when you were where?

And he said, here, Mom.

Here.

And I said, on Earth?

He said yes, on Earth.

And he took his hand and he said he was in a car driving

like this on a road.

And that his car wrecked, caught on fire, and that he died.

This really made the hair on my neck stand up,

because that's exactly how my brother died, five years

before Noah was even born.

The night my brother passed away,

he had gone to the state fair with some of his friends

to go to a concert.

So at 3:20 AM on Sunday, I woke up, just woke up out

of a dead sleep.

I looked out my window and the car was not there.

So I knew he wasn't home.

And I couldn't go back to sleep.

The next morning, the telephone rang.

It was Craig and Trenny's father, my ex-husband.

And he told me that Craig had had this accident and had died.

It was just-- it was awful.

It was a single-car crash.

And the car had rolled.

He had been ejected from the car.

The car had burned.

I learned later that Trenny and I and Craig's father

had all woken up at 3:20 AM.

We were in three different locations

and we all woke up at the same time

because we believe that's the exact time that he died.

I know there was definitely drinking going on.

And I know there was some sort of discussion at some point.

Somebody had tried to take his keys away from him.

He got quite belligerent and said, no, I'm going,

and would not let them take his keys.

And he left.

Losing my brother, even though it's been over 20 years ago,

still deeply affects me to this day.

By the time Noah was around three years old,

I didn't really talk about my brother a lot.

I'm not sure at that point he even knew that I had a brother.

I don't remember anyone talking about Craig's car

crash in front of Noah as a young child.

When Noah talked about being here before

and hearing him recount his own physical death

was pretty freaky.

We thought we had put the past behind us

when my brother passed.

But I started to believe more and more

that Noah was reincarnated.

My mom wasn't so convinced.

But that changed one night when Noah said something to her

that he could have never known.

My six-year-old son Riley believed

he had an old dad who fought in a war

and was injured while fighting in that war.

I was shocked.

I didn't know what to believe.

I mean, he would tell these details like it was just

like reading a book.

It was just matter of fact and that's the way it was.

He actually drew a picture of his old dad's house one time,

showed me where everything was.

It was almost like I could have been there with him.

And I can really visualize what he was talking about,

because that's how specific he was.

Things that he drew and said about his old family

is nothing like how we are now.

The memories that Riley shared about himself when he was young

was that he remembers being small

and his mom would take care of him.

But this old dad must have made an impression on him,

because he was the focus of a lot of Riley's early memories.

The person that he described

was consistent throughout.

After that, he shared that his dad used

to fly a plane and that it had guns on it.

I have no idea why, but I just said,

does your old dad have a name?

And he said, Cedric Pokker.

I was not expecting him to say a name.

We don't know anyone named Cedric.

And usually if you see the name spelled,

sometimes people pronounce it Cedric.

But he said specifically Cedric.

And I said, well, where did you hear that name?

And he said, well, he told me.

Later that night I put him to bed.

And I started doing some research on the internet.

I typed in Cedric Pokker and what came up

was a Cedric Popkin who shot down a Fokker airplane.

And it sounded just like Pokker.

My heart just sank.

And all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh.

I can't believe I found something.

A lot of the details of Cedric's life

matched what Riley has told me.

My name is Riley.

I'm six.

My old dad's name is Cedric.

He flew a plane with guns on it.

He came back from the war different.

Cedric Popkin was born in Australia in 1890.

In 1916, when World War I broke out, Cedric enlisted.

He was stationed with the 17th machine gun company based

in France.

And they happened to wear gray uniforms.

It's believed that Cedric Popkin fired the shot that

is famous for shooting down the Red Baron.

The Red Baron was famous, and this

is something that followed Cedric

for the rest of his life.

About two months after killing the Red Baron,

he suffered wounds that resulted in his right leg being

amputated.

After that injury, Cedric returned home.

Cedric had two sons.

His sons were Rollin and Michael that both died over

50 years ago.

The interesting thing is that they both died

before their father.

It was interesting that there were so many similarities

between some of the facts that Riley had described.

All this time we thought we had a little kid that

was talking about an old dad, maybe it was his imagination.

But as soon as I saw that connection, I thought,

wow, this is real.

There's validity to what he's saying.

It could be a possibility that Riley is one of Cedric Popkin's

sons, but I'm not sure.

I don't know the answers.

I don't have any proof or disproof of any of that stuff,

because in my view you can't have

proof of those kinds of things.

At least I haven't seen it.

I don't know what it would take to convince me.

I guess I would know it when I saw it, right?

It would have to be something definitive, which I don't

expect is coming anytime soon.

When I was doing research, I realized that most people who

have experienced a past life, they experienced it themselves.

Riley's case was a little different

because he was really experiencing a past life

from his dad's perspective and what his dad went through.

For him to hang on to those memories in that relationship,

the relationship must have been very powerful.

In my research, I did find some photos of Cedric.

I just kind of wanted to see what he would say.

So I put down an array of old time pictures.

And then put one in of Cedric just kind of in the middle

and asked Riley if any of those look familiar to him.

What I saw next amazed me.

My six-year-old son Riley believed

he had an old dad from a previous life.

He said his father had been injured

and that the men wore green uniforms.

What I saw next amazed me.

I put down an array of photos.

Some were just pictures of soldiers from the old days.

And one of them was Cedric Popkin.

And when I put those photos out, Riley touched Cedric Popkin's

picture first.

I didn't want to be like, oh yeah, that's him.

But inside I was like, oh my gosh.

I can't believe you just picked this guy.

This is the guy that matched the name in the airplane.

So yeah, it was kind of an eye-opener for me.

His old dad could be Cedric Popkin.

I'm not sure.

But I'm OK with either way.

It's interesting to think that a boy that had traumatic memories

in his past life is now with a family that has a dad that

is an advocate for children and a mom

that's a marriage and family therapist for children.

And things are much different for him now.

As somebody who works with kids,

I just try to be supportive and encouraging

and let them know that that's not how we roll in our family.

Nick is an awesome dad.

He's funny and very loving.

And they have a very special bond.

We talk a lot about making sure

that he knows that we love him and that we're here for him.

And I have no doubt that he understands that I love him

and that I am his father and that he doesn't have

another father, certainly, at this point,

and that he can come to me with anything.

And I think he believes that and understands that.

I love my mom and dad.

I'm happy that I have my parents.

I think if you met Riley and you didn't know this about him,

if he never told you about his old dad,

you would never know that there was anything different

about him.

I would say that he's a normal six-year-old who plays soccer

and t-ball and hangs out with his friends and goes swimming

and eats pizza.

He just happens to remember having an old dad.

Pedal fast.

There you go.

That's it.

I don't think that this is going to be something that troubles

him later in life or anything along those lines.

You're on your own.

I'm too tired to keep running.

You're on your own.

He's a super engaging person.

That's my boy.

And he sincerely cares about the kids.

Victory dance.

The thought that maybe he did go

through some of those hard times, it makes me feel sad.

But I also feel happy knowing that he's come out

on the other side with us.

Watch out for the tree.

We're going to make this life for him a very positive one.

My son remembered dying in a horrific car accident.

My brother died in a drunk driving accident

before my son was ever born.

I knew that my son, Noah, had a past life,

and that past life was my brother.

My mom wasn't so sure.

When Noah was seven, he was

having a sleepover at my house.

I was getting ready to tuck him in.

And he looked up at me and said, Nana, I need froggy.

And I stopped in my tracks.

And I said, what do you mean, froggy?

And he goes, you know, the froggy I always sleep with.

I'm in disbelief.

And I said, what color is froggy?

He's yellow, Nana.

You know froggy.

All of a sudden I'm having flashbacks of Craig.

He always slept with froggy.

Froggy is a handmade stuffed animal made

by my sister, Craig's aunt.

She gave it to him when he was 6 or so,

and he just always loved it and slept with it.

I had, of course, kept certain favorite things of my kids,

froggy being one of them.

But it hadn't been something that I brought out

for my grandkids to sleep with or play with.

I was thinking, am I really hearing what I'm hearing?

So I went to the closet and had to get it down

off the top shelf.

And I said, are you talking about this froggy?

And his eyes got really big and he broke into this big smile

and took it from me and hugged it and said, there's my froggy.

I was immediately a little weepy, because it brought back

so many memories.

I mean, we couldn't go anywhere without that froggy.

Craig took it everywhere.

Noah had never seen this frog before.

It had never been talked about before.

That was the moment for me, because now it was something

really tangible in my house.

That was the first time that I thought to myself,

there's something really special about this boy.

All of these other things that have happened now

really hit home with me.

I remember my mom calling me when Noah had stayed

over at her house.

And she called me crying.

I felt like she was fully convinced at that point.

It was a realization that night

that Craig's soul was with us.

I felt like there was no other explanation

but that Craig was reincarnated through Noah.

He's not my son, but they share a soul.

To watch Noah and see the traits of Craig

through him, once I totally embraced it,

it was a comfort and a blessing.

It's a blessing.

As he was reaching middle school,

the anger that Noah was starting to exhibit

reminded me of my brother at that age.

If he was my brother reincarnated,

there may be anger and rage he would bring forward.

And I was really worried.

My brother's soul had somehow come back to me as my son.

Noah called me by a nickname that only my brother would use.

Hanny.

Noah talked of a spy plane that only my brother had seen.

When Noah asked my mom for a stuffed animal by a name

that only my brother would have known,

then she started to believe, too.

I would see him banging his head on the ground and on the walls

and really acting out.

I was worried that if he was my brother

reincarnated that there may be some difficulties that he would

bring forward.

My brother had some very tough times in his adolescence

where he fought a lot of internal anger and rage

and didn't always make the best decisions.

And I was really worried that something like that

might come through with my son.

As much as I miss my brother, Noah was my priority

and I wanted to make sure what happened to my brother

did not happen to Noah.

My mom helped me find a very good therapist that helped Noah

with the anger that he was feeling inside.

And in some strange, connected way,

I felt like maybe I was helping my brother, as well.

Noah's 16 now.

He's really grown into a really balanced human being.

My name is Noah.

I do believe I was my uncle.

The fact that I was my uncle just

amazes me and I think it's pretty cool.

Being different and having a story behind it.

I feel like the memories are carried over with me

because there's no way I would be

able to know all those stories like my mom's nickname.

Hanny.

known any of that.

Never met my uncle, so there's no way I would

be able to know all those.

Makes me feel like I am getting like a second chance.

I think the reason he came back as me is because he messed up

and he wants me to make it right and carry on

from what he left over.

I think that there was troubled times for Craig

and I think this is a way for him to heal.

His soul is being healed and Noah

is learning from Craig's soul and moving forward

in a more positive way.

Noah is driving now.

I think he understands there's a lot of responsibility

with that.

Every decision can impact his life and somebody else's life.

But he's very careful and very cautious.

So far he's made really good decisions behind the wheel.

But like my friends, you know, they got stories

about how family members died from drinking and driving.

But I feel like I've been there.

And I feel like I've been through it.

With my uncle's mistakes, this is not another story.

I feel like my uncle did come back to my mom as me

because they're very close.

And my uncle watched out for my mom.

So I feel like I'm going to still do the same-- watch out

for her and help her with everything that she needs

and do what I can and make sure I don't go down the path

that he went down.

I think Noah has lived a much happier life

than my son did.

I think it's another chance for Craig's soul

to be happy and enjoy life with his family.

It's made him a really good role

model for not just his brothers, but also his friends.

He's just a really good, even-keeled young man.

I am beyond proud of where Noah is at today.

I am nervous for Noah to turn 21 and to go

through his early 20s.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't in the back of my head

after what we've been through.

But I also have confidence that he will make better decisions.

I've done everything I can up until this

point to control breaking the cycle.

But now Noah's 16.

So I have to hand over the keys.

And now he's in control of the rest of it.

I feel like my uncle did come back to my family

so we can break that cycle.

And I'm going to break the cycle.

What I learned from this experience

is anything can happen at any time,

so don't take life for granted.

Just be you.

Be smart.

And live life.