A resident of the Entraygues-sur-Truyère retirement home, Raymonde wanted to mark her 103rd birthday by getting her first tattoo.
“I’m lucky to have a grandmother like that,” rejoices Aveline Merrien, who came from Menton (Alpes-Maritimes) for her grandmother’s 103rd birthday, which was fittingly celebrated at the Roussilhe retirement home in Entraygues-sur-Truyère, where she has lived since 2015.
Raymonde Pack is a much-loved resident, and one who is always keen to discover new experiences. For her 103rd birthday, she had expressed the wish to go for a motorcycle ride or get a tattoo.
She wanted to go for a motorcycle ride
“Luckily, a new tattoo artist set up shop in Entraygues-sur-Truyère. We contacted her, she was very happy to do it,” says Aveline Merrien.
Raymonde’s dream came true thanks to Charlotte, aka exkyz.tattoo, who welcomed her into her salon. On her arm, she forever inscribed the name of Raymonde’s daughter, Chantal, with a pansy flower. “It went very well, she didn’t even bat an eyelid,” Aveline can testify a few hours later, in the middle of a game of Scrabble with her grandmother.
A first tattoo at 103 years old… a first in Europe?
At the Roussilhe retirement home, “life project” meetings are regularly organized to ask residents what they would like to do. This is where the idea of a tattoo at 103 emerged, and other ideas have time to appear for Raymonde Pack’s 104th birthday. “We’ve already asked her to think about it for next year. She got her loyalty card from Charlotte, we’re not at the end of our surprises!”
In 2020, a 103-year-old American retiree, Dorothy Pollack, had a small frog tattooed on her arm before taking a short motorcycle ride. Two things the American wanted to do while she still had the resources, two wishes similar to Aveyron resident Raymonde Pack. She could be one of the few, potentially the only, centenarian to have gotten a tattoo for the first time after the age of 100!
