She gazed out of the window from her father's hopspital room, looking out at the scenery.  She saw birds flitting in and out of trees festooned with flowers and leaves, cars going back and forth along the highway, and even people walking slowly about the hospital grounds, or in and out of the hospital itself.

She sighed.  How she wished that she were out there, enjoying a normal, carefree, worry-free life, instead of sitting by her dying father's bedside, worrying and wondering if today was the day that he was going to die.

She knew that this day was coming; she tried to prepare herself for it, but it was difficult at best.  Now that it was nearly time, Queenie wished that she had told her father that she loved him more than she did or that she could take away his pain and suffering.  She wished that she had her old father back: the one who laughed at her jokes and spoiled her children (his grandchildren) rotten.  The man that lay in the hospital bed was a shadow of his former self.  He was nothing but skin and bones.

Queenie had taken care of her daddy for the past year and a half, silently suffering right along with him, but saying nothing.  She silently bargained with God, asking Him to spare his life and to heal him from the terrible disease (amyotraphic lateral sclerosis, or ALS) that would eventually claim him.  But that miracle never materialized: she watched her once-strong father quickly apporaching death's door, adn there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it.

The only thought that gave Queenie comfort was knowing that her daddy was a strong Christian who firmly believed in Jesus Christ, even in his wretched, weakened condition.  She knew where he was going, but it certainly did not make things any easier for her, especially since she was the only one in her family who truly cared.

The sudden piercing wail of the heart monitor snapped Queenie out of her daydream.  Queenie quickly glanced at it: it was nothing but a straight neon-green line, meaning one thing, and one thing only: her daddy's heart had stopped beating.

Queenie started sobbing as she shook her father's still form and slapped his face, hoping for a response.  Nothing.  Her cries quickly brought the nurse running into the room; the nurse, in turn, called for help as the patient in the bed had just suffered a cardiac arrest.

The nurse quickly but firmly lead Queenie out of the room while the rescue team worked on her father; but Queenie knew deep down that their efforts were in vain: her father had quietly passed from this earth to the next; he was now in Heaven, with Jesus and the angels.  For him, life was over, but for Queenie and her family, an entirely new and different life was just beginning.