The night the Angels sang

Over 50 years later, it still sends chills down our bones.

This is a true story. Nothing has been exaggerated. This story will give you a chill that will make the hair stand up on your arm.

In the days before massive developments, a golf course, and university housing, the country Maryland road was dark and lonely, with sparsely scattered homes. The rumor of the day was that a baby died in our house. Knowing what we know now and recalling everything that happened in that house, there had to be much more than a baby.

By today’s standards, we lived a lifestyle that would be considered equivalent to the third world. We lived in the country and had very few neighbors. We did not have indoor plumbing, running water, or a telephone. The way we kept in touch with our extended family was from pop-in visits.

That Winter Night

It was in the dead cold of Maryland winter. Cold and dark was that night. It was on the weekend, so we were up late. I was a teenager, my two twin brothers were there. They were about 8 or 9 years old at the time. Two of the family cousins were over our house that night, and, along with my parents, we were sitting around the table and in the living room playing cards, as we often did on the weekends in those days.

It was getting quite late into the night, heading past 11pm, when we heard what seemed to be children out front. Of the seven of us that were there, four of us heard the kids outside. However, we all stopped in our tracks in silence and listened.

As we listened again to the children, the first thought in my mom’s head was, “What are kids doing out at this time of night?” Before running to the door, we heard what they were singing. Yes, singing.

“David… David… David….”

It was the most beautiful singing, like a choir of very young children. They were calling for David. My brother David.

It went on and on as they continued to call for David. My mom said that she was going to tell the kids to go home, and that David would not come out and play this late at night.

However, as soon as we opened the door, no one was outside. It was cold, dead silence.

We did not imagine it. Four of us all heard it at the same time. It was at this time that my mom began to fear for my brother David. Was something going to happen to him?

Over the next months after that night, we tried to put it in the back of our minds, trying to shake it off. David was fine. He will be fine. After all, we were used to weird stuff happening at that house.

Later that year, in the summer, mom’s best friend, who lived in California, came for a visit. Stella was originally from our area in Maryland, but had moved to California many years ago, but came back every year for a visit. During that visit, Sarah brought some unfortunate news: Her son, David, had passed away over the winter from leukemia.

We were frozen. We immediately knew it wasn’t our David that the angels were calling home, but it was Stella’s David.

Even as I write this now, and the incident of that winter night long ago has been retold time and time again in our family, it still sends the chills up my arm.

Those of us who were in the house that night know that there were never any children outside. It was a choir of angels that we heard. Somehow between the strong connection that my mom had with Sarah, the psychic abilities that mom had, and that scary house that bordered on dimensions of the seen and unseen world, those little angels were sent to us on that winter night.