Boy, good thing I checked in again. I think I made it clear that I thought it a safe assumption our OP (original poster) was a LOT closer to realizing his goal than Bilam, for all the positive reasons one could think of.
To Heshy: let me publicly ask you mechila if you felt at all dissed.
(The only reason I referenced Bilam was that I couldn’t help but think of his wish to die like the righteous, without having to do the hard work. Maybe I should have thrown in a few more lines of “lehavdil.” And my thinking that maybe he might not be here again…yeah, a century’s a long time to live, but still not enough time to hang here too much. And sorry if that offended anyone.)