Yesterday my wife and I went to the funeral of a great lady in her 90s, one of my Christian in-laws. In the eulogy, the minister said that he had visited her when she was dying and told her that when people who live such long full lives come to the gates of heaven, St. Peter says, "You go to the front of the line!"
It’s a rare minister that my wife likes (one reason she married a Jew, I guess; though rabbis would surely disappoint her too), and this guy was no exception. Two or three times after the ceremony I heard her muttering about what a cornball he was. She said, "If there’s a line up there, the people who lived into their 90s should go to the back. It’s the little children and young people who should go to the front." Amen.
