Send Me an Angel
SEND ME AN ANGEL – April 3, 2026 – Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA
From a very young age, Gabriella Chubb was told her voice was a gift. Her mom liked to say, “You were put on this earth to sing and share your music with anyone who will listen.” Gabriella joined as many choirs as her school and church allowed. By the time she was a teenager, she had a vocal range as wide as Maria Carey’s and a powerfully pure tone that could melt paint off a wall from a hundred feet away.
Her friends and family told her, “You’ll be rich and famous someday. You’ll win Grammys and sell out football stadiums.” As much as Gabriella recognized and believed in her gift, she did not have the fearless personality to chase a singing career. She also felt it was wrong to take money to do something she loved so much.
After aging out of her high school choirs, she began getting invitations to sing at weddings and parties. She was always happy to do it on one condition: No one was allowed to pay her. Soon she was singing at dances, funerals, and city events. She became something of a minor celebrity around Cedar Rapids and typically had two or three singing engagements every month. Most of the time, she sang solo and acapella because it was easier than worrying about a piano accompanist or rounding up a group of people.
On a busy weekend in April, Gabriella was scheduled to sing the national anthem on opening day for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the city’s minor league baseball team. A few days before the game, a friend named Morgan called and asked if Gabriella would sing at her great uncle’s funeral.
“The funeral’s in the late afternoon. You should still be able to make it to the game,” Morgan explained.
The schedule would be tight and she would need to hustle from the funeral to the stadium, but Gabriella agreed. She hated turning down any chance to perform for an audience. After all, she was put on the earth to sing to everyone who would listen.
On the morning of her double performance, Gabriella dug through her closet searching for an outfit appropriate for a funeral and a baseball game. She settled on a dark blue dress that was long enough to hang below her knees. It was the kind of dress that could look serious or casual depending on the shoes you wore. For the funeral, she would wear heels and for the baseball game, sneakers. Changing shoes was quick and could be done in her car.
Dressed in heels, Gabriella left for the funeral with time to spare. She reached a main highway when a warning light appeared on her dashboard and she could feel her car leaning to one side. She pulled off the road with a completely flat tire.
With a full-sized spare in the back of her car, Gabriella would normally change the tire herself. She felt awkward doing it in a dress and instead called for roadside assistance. By the time a tow truck arrived and the driver swapped her tires, Gabriella was late to the funeral and a bit panicked. She knew the church where the funeral was being held was on Huckabee Road, not far from her current location. She had no time to look up the exact address and figured she would simply make a right turn and then look for a church with a full parking lot and a hearse parked outside.
After Gabriella made the turn, sure enough, the first church she reached looked busy and a long black hearse was parked next to the entrance. She found a parking spot and hurried inside. The service had begun and she peeked in at the front of the chapel where someone was speaking from a pulpit. A few people were seated in chairs on the raised platform behind the pulpit and Gabriella gracefully tiptoed to the front and sat in an empty chair next to a man who looked like he might be the minister in charge.
A few seconds later, the speaker at the pulpit finished and the minister next to Gabriella stood up and announced that a member of the family would read a short eulogy. After the minister sat down and the eulogy began. Gabriella leaned over to the minister and whispered, “I’m so sorry I got here late, and unfortunately I have another appointment. Would it be possible for me to sing as soon as the eulogy is over?”
The minister looked back at her with some surprise but he said, “Sure. Go right ahead.”
As promised, the eulogy was short. As soon as it was finished, Gabriella popped up from her chair and walked to the pulpit. She adjusted the microphone away from her, knowing her powerful voice did not need amplification to reach the hundred-or-so people in the audience. “Amazing Grace” was her “go to” song at funerals and she immediately began at a perfect pitch. The tune was so familiar, she hardly had to think about the words. As she sang, she took her first good look around the large room with a high ceiling.
The pulpit where she stood was elevated above the ground floor that contained rows of padded, wooden benches. A closed coffin sat right below the pulpit and most of the mourners sat in the benches closest to the coffin. Gabriella scanned faces, looking for her friend, Morgan. She did not seem to be in the crowd. In fact, Gabriella did not recognize anyone.
As she filled the room with pure, heavenly sound, Gabriella sensed something stirring behind her. In between her lyrics, she heard whispering and caught glimpses of motion at the very edge of her field of view. She did not flinch or turn to look. She was too experienced to be distracted during a performance.
No matter what was happening behind her, Gabriella could tell the crowd in front of her was impressed and moved by her song. Many dabbing their eyes, overcome with emotion. Gabriella finished “Amazing Grace” with a flourish and the chapel sank into stunned silence. Every eye watched her nod and then walk directly from the pulpit and out of the door separating the chapel from the entrance lobby.
Gabriella was already thinking of the national anthem at the baseball game when she noticed printed programs for the funeral stacked on a wooden table near the door. She grabbed one while barely breaking stride and then read as she walked to her car. The man’s name printed at the top of the program was Frank Harper. Gabriella stopped and took a more careful look. Her friend’s great uncle was definitely not named Frank Harper. His name was much more distinctive and German sounding, something like Wetzel Eppendorffer. Gabriella peered back at the closed door separating her from the chapel and coffin. Gulp. She had sung at the wrong funeral!
“Should I go in and explain?” Gabriella asked herself. No, it would be too humiliating and she had to get to the baseball stadium. Without looking back, she ran to her car, hoping no one was following to demand an apology for intruding on the funeral. She sped away, feeling embarrassed right up until the moment she walked onto the field to start the season for the Cedar Rapids Kernels.
After the baseball game started, Gabriella’s first call was to Morgan, whose uncle’s funeral she had missed. “I am so sorry. I stopped at the first church I saw.”
Her friend chuckled. “Yeah, Huckabee Road is full of churches. Who knew there would be multiple funerals happening at the same time.”
“I should have checked the address. It’s really my tire’s fault. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Don’t worry about it. You know I would have loved you there, but we had other musical numbers. They had things covered, even if you would have sounded better. So whose funeral did you sing at, anyway?”
“Some guy named Frank Harper. I’ve never heard of him.”
“Are you going to try and find out what they thought of you?”
“Are you kidding? They probably thought some crazy person wandered in off the street. I hope they forget what happened as soon as possible.”
Little did Gabriella and Morgan know that “Amazing Grace” was Frank Harper’s favorite song. His dying wish was that someone sing it at his funeral. That responsibility fell on his daughter, Roxanne, who remained anxious about her singing voice. As the funeral began and she grew more broken up over her father, she grew convinced she could not possibly sing. She silently prayed that something might happen to remove her burden.
When Gabriella unexpectedly stood and uttered the first words of “Amazing Grace”, Roxanne gasped. A miracle unfolded right in front of her and she was not sure how to react. She could not catch her breath but she wanted everyone to know they were in the middle of something special. This was the commotion Gabriella sensed behind her.
Although she was a minor celebrity in Cedar Rapids, Gabriella was too minor for anyone to recognize her. Those at Frank Harper’s funeral simply referred to her as the mystery woman in blue. Frank’s daughter called her the angel in blue, a gift sent directly from heaven who she would never forget.
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