A Banshee In Our Family

When my Mother died back in 1993 we heard something in the middle of the night, a cry over the hillside we could not explain.

My Mother's Death had had been coming along for some time, she had taken to her bed for 2 years after my Father passed of a sudden stroke. She already was struggling with Cystic Fibrosis at the time of my his Death, after he died she just took to her bed.

We come from a primarily Scandinavian lineage, although on my Father's side, he is both Scottish and Irish. The cry we heard was upon my Mother's death, which is kinda odd, because she's not Irish.

On the night she died in June, my daughter and I were sitting in her bedroom with the windows open, talking. When all the sudden we heard a sound, like a wail, or a cry, that literally, "echoed" over the hillside. We lived in California at the time, in the Hollywood hills, and we were surrounded by trees and quite a bit of nature, our house was fairly remote.

It was just one cry, and it was loud and long, it seemed to travel from afar over and passed our house then faded away. It almost sounded like an animal crying, but as soon as you heard it, you knew it was no animal. It had an eerie, preternatural quality to it. It sent a chill down our spines.

"What was that?!", I said, "Was that an animal?". "I don't know", my daughter said, she was only 11 at the time. We drifted off to sleep that night, finally after speculating on what kind of sound that was.

Two days later, Grandma died.

Another odd thing about my Family on my Mother's side. After doing some research on death messengers, I remembered that before my Grandfather died, My Grandmother (who's Swedish) saw an Owl in the window that startled her and made her scream. He died like a day later. Owl's are traditionally sometimes considered Death messengers. I was only 15 at this time.