43. The Lonely Boy’s Friend

I work on a pediatric bone marrow transplant unit, and sadly we have a lot of kids that pass. Our kids stay here for longer periods of time (usually 1-6 months just inpatient) so we have to rotate them to different rooms to make sure everything is clean.

One particular 3-year-old boy doesn’t have family come visit. He never really communicates with staff and would only occasionally chatter to himself. We moved him to a room where a little girl had recently passed and we started noticing him talking to different places in the room and staring/nodding when alone. Then he started saying new English words though he hadn’t had an increase in visitors.

My coworkers are convinced he’s talking to the little girl that died there, and though I’m a pretty skeptical person, I still get the creeps when I walk by and see him talking to himself.