Yis there coffee? That is the first question that the protagonist of this facet asks every morning. Then: ask for the newspaper El Universal and if a headline appears that says ‘Marialabaja’, jump with emotion.
Mrs. Elizabeth likes band music. Sitting down and from her chair, she moves her shoulders as she sings: “Oh, January 20 is here, the Sincelejo party.” He dances to the sound they play and his eyes light up every time he feels the chords of those songs that in the past and, until the sun today, call his attention so much. “I don’t need a drink to enjoy myself,” he said then.
Today, February 21, 2021, Elizabeth Beltrán Álvarez turns 100, lucid and, to the pride of her daughters, without suffering from a single disease. His integrity is admirable.
Miriam, Daira, Estela and Nora are his daughters. They describe her as a hardworking, cheerful and very caring woman. His neighbors on Paseo Bolívar agree and it is that before the pandemic he could be seen sitting on the terrace of his house, greeting all the passers-by and the dozens of friends he made over the years, thanks to his sociable personality.
What do you think keeps you so good at 100? -we asked him. She says joy. “I am a happy person, and I danced a lot, a lot, I still dance. I was always very festive mijita ”.
His voice is, at times, that wave of freshness that we all need, it retains that breath of sweetness that allows him to see a family of more than 18 members behind him.
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When Dona Elizabeth concentrates on the newspaper there is nothing else that catches her attention. Sometimes when he doesn’t understand a new word, like the one that is in vogue: ‘pandemic’, he asks what the meaning is. Daira, Estela or Miriam come up and say the answer in her ear.
“And now why do people walk around with that muzzle?” He asked his daughters at the beginning of the health crisis due to COVID-19, referring to the masks that, he noticed, were used by people who entered the house.
“God has given us the happiness of having our mother at this age and in good health, above all,” says Estela.
He is popular in his neighborhood and of course, if he always had advice for all the people who asked for it, looking for solutions to other people’s problems. That is what his daughters admire the most.
“She had friends in the hospitals, if there was a poor person who did not have the means to pay for a hotel to continue with their treatment here, in Cartagena, she would bring them home. She was always very humanitarian, ”continues Miriam.
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He was born in 1921, into a humble family in Marialabaja, Bolívar; on an island, where the main food was fish. From there, as a result of a flood that devastated part of the town, he began his new life in Cartagena with his relatives. He was just 17 years old.
A world of opportunities was opened to him in the capital of Bolívar, rewarded for the tenacity and effort that Elizabeth has always shown. She was a manufacturer of curtains in a large company, a teacher and also dedicated herself to cooking as hobby. “I did everything,” says Dona Elizabeth. Her seasoning was inherited by Daira, who proudly tells how her mother liked to make special dishes and desserts as well.
He hums a tune, it’s a joint, he does it with such joy that we can’t take our eyes off him
The mental agility that Mrs. Elizabeth still possesses shows the importance of the exercise of attention and perception that must be present in the daily environment of the elderly, and is that experts point out that cultivating them facilitates the psychological capacity of memory.
He was born in 1921, he remembers it, just as he remembers each of his relatives and how much the wooden house that today is his home cost at the time.
Her husband, Joaquín Meza, who died in his sixty years, it was an important part of his life, of course, with him he forged his family. He, an expert in printing machinery, is perhaps the reason why Dona Elizabeth loves to read those huge headlines that appear in the newspaper.
She is wearing an elegant pink dress; gets up to drink water. She holds her walker tightly and, accompanied by Miriam, reaches the kitchen. That she is so active at one hundred years of age gives hope to a generation like mine: we have many years ahead of us to meet our goals.
What is the secret of its longevity? In addition to the fact that God blessed her with good genes, her daughters affirm that the generosity of Dona Elizabeth’s heart and the fact that her sons did not give her upset or tantrums helps. She was always surrounded by love; what she gives is paid back and, at her age, she is the jewel of her home, a precious treasure that even her great-grandchildren cherish with love.
Dona Elizabeth’s patio is surrounded by trees and flowers, a place where she can rest at an age when memories turn into joy; those in which he danced with a candle in his hand, between drums and cymbals. Today you will hear again, as every year, that beautiful wind music that you love. This time from afar and with musicians with their mouths sealed with masks, it commemorates its hundred years in good health, in the midst of the most bizarre moment of the last century due to COVID-19.
The kisses and hugs will be saved until it is possible, but love is in the air for her and forever. Happy birthday, Mrs. Elizabeth!
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