Faith

An interview on ABC's PrimeTime Live OR 20/20 program, on the subject of longevity, interviewed several people who were over 100 years old. One woman, Mary Eliot, left an indelible impression on me. She was 102 years old. Her daughter Joselyne has just died a day before the interview due to a heart attack. Joselyne was 77. Somehow, Mary spoke with equanimity about the daughter's death. Reflectively, she remembers once, before bedtime, her little girl prayed by the bed, quietly and simply, "Now, dear God, let's go to sleep."

The 102-year-old woman said, she kept thinking about this prayer of her daughter's, made more than 70 years ago, when she learned of her passing. She knows God is with her. "I've been asked to give back to God, the perfect gift that He'd given me. Just as quietly, just as beautifully."