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Margo works in Pediatric Intensive Care in a large children's hospital. She has been charge nurse for fifteen years there and enjoys her job tremendously. She has ample continuing education opportunities and enjoys attending nursing and management conferences. She has a very caring and knowledgeable staff. Her boss is a pleasant woman who likes to bring homemade goodies to the office.

Margo likes her job. She just hates the death factor. The "death factor" is what is considered as the overwhelming ratio of children dying rather than surviving in PICU. Margo knows that only the children with the lowest chances come to her unit. Still, she hates it that so many of the little ones have to die.

For her own mental health, Margo tries not to get involved in everyone's "story." She tries to remain objective. But there are always a few who manage to creep into her life to weigh on her soul. One of them was Jessie.

Jessica could have been a beautiful baby. Her body was in perfect proportions. Her hair was black, kinky, and curly. Margo loved the feel of it. Jessie's eyelashes were long. Her fingers were long. And her cry was long.

Margo swore that Jessie had the lungs of a one-year-old. Jessie would holler and the whole nursery could hear her. Margo didn't mind holding Jessie. She just minded that Jessie had no tears. Jessie was born with no eyes. It was as if two little slits were carved, two perfect sets of eyelashes were planted in the slits, yet the eyes were somehow forgotten. It was a cruel thing. Jessie could have been a beautiful baby but the truth was she was hard to look at. Her mother had taken drugs while pregnant with Jessie. The consequences were irreversible.

Jessie had several anomalies internally: many things were not right in her little body and her system shut down quickly. Margo knew it wouldn't be long until Jessie's body would succumb to her health problems. But Margo couldn't seem to let go of her. She talked to Jessie, held her, sang to her the brief two weeks of her life. The nurses cautioned Margo not to get too close. But Margo just wanted to give what she could in the little time Jessie would be here on earth.

After Jessie died, Margo's boss gave Margo a small statue of a little angel to remind her of Jessie. Margo looked at it often: it sat on the side of her desk next to her calendar. She saw her little angel every day.

It made her wonder. Is that what angels really look like? Is that what Jessie looks like? Is that what I will look like when I die?

Margo took her questions to her women's Bible study group. They decided to make a study of it. They studied about these supernatural beings who served God as messenger agents. They weren't always sent on positive errands, the women learned. They read about angels in Genesis, Exodus, Judges, and Zechariah. They analyzed Michael, Gabriel, Uriah, and Raphael. The Gospels mentioned angels, as did Hebrews and Revelation. They even studied dark, evil angels. It generated much discussion about dark, evil souls on earth.

The more Margo and the women read about angels, the more they were convinced that they'll never really know what will actually happen to them when they die. The more they studied the afterlife, the more they saw the importance of the present-life. Living in heaven wasn't as important as living in God.