Tear Jerker / Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction

• The ending to “Firestation 32”. Stevie, a child that hangs out at the station, warns the crew about a house fire. Stevie and the fire crew managed to save everybody inside, except one: Stevie. He went inside the house to try to save the occupants, but died from smoke inhalation. The Stevie that helped the firefighters was merely his spirit.
• “The Mystery of Douglas Hibbard”: The titular man stays at a motel to rest from a flu before driving home the next morning to see his wife. Sadly, while going out at night to a drug store, he fatally crashes his car. The motel owner somehow meets Douglas after the crash for the latter to give him a bag and ask him to give it to Mrs. Hibbard. When his wife comes over the next day to pick up his things, she receives what’s in the bag: a diamond ring that Douglas promised he’d buy for her one day. A heartwarming gift, but her crying and loss is still tragic to see.
• “The Portrait” has an artist that can paint pictures of people that will cause them to die days later. One woman that uses his service turned out to not be stricken with a fatal illness, but suicidal. It drives the artist to kill himself with his own ability. You can’t can’t help but feel sorry for the guy and his compounding guilt.
• From "The Old Bike". After the bike's horn and light went off, stopping the brothers from fighting and learning it belonged to their father. It leads to them learning he has a brother, their uncle Glen. When asked why they never knew about him, he explains that after they started a construction company, they had a bad falling out that led to him moving away and they lost touch. Glen notes sadly how because of that fight,he didn't even know his brother died or had sons.
• If you want to find yourself crying Happy Tears, look no further than "Tants" from Season 3. A young artist named Beth finds herself drawn to this elderly woman named Tants she sees in a park and asks if she would let her paint her portrait. After working through Tants's initial reluctance with offers of tea, Beth begins painting the portrait, and during the process, Tants begins to tell her life story. She was imprisoned in Auschwitz during World War II, where most of her family was killed and she only escaped when the camp was liberated one day before she was to be executed. Eventually, Beth's mother returns from vacation, sees Tants's portrait and insists Beth take her to meet the woman. Walking up to Tants in the park, she delivers a Wham Line like no other: "...Mama?" As it turns out, both Tants and her daughter had escaped Auschwitz separately and thanks to incorrect records, thought the other had been dead for decades, and Beth had been painting a portrait of her own grandmother. As an added bonus, the end of episode recap labels this story as FACT.
• "Secret of the Family Tomb" tells the story of mysterious happenings occurring at the family crypt after the deaths of Dori Stone (a troubled teen who ran away from home) and her mother, Bev (who died shortly afterwards due to a stroke). Despite setting a trap to gain footprints, there's no answers as to who is wrecking the crypt. That's until Dori's stepfather finds her diary and learns that Bev was an Abusive Parent. The priest hypothesizes that Dori is furious about her abusive mother being buried with her. When the stepfather moves Bev's casket out of the tomb, the strange happenings stopped completely. The idea that the child was driven to run away to escape her mother's abuse and ends up buried with her is a heartbreaking one.
• The beginning of "Kid in the Closet" is heartbreaking enough for a parent. A child is being tormented by his two older siblings and dealing with fears of a monster in the closet. Then, when his older brother goes into the closet to torment his younger brother further...he suddenly vanishes without a trace. The story ends with the heartbreaking reveal that the oldest was never found and labeled a runaway. Fortunately, the story this episode was based on did end with the runaway being found at a friend's house a couple of weeks later (a fact the producers weren't made aware of until after the episode aired)...but the idea of never seeing your child again is not only Nightmare Fuel but this as well.

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