When Hermine Saubion is reminded that she is 110 years old, she replies: “It’s old, it’s not young, I’m holding on”. The supercentenarian who lives in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has no health problems but physical disabilities and an deafness heavy which isolates it. She only understands snippets of sentences. But she does not give up life in society here, where she has lived for two years. When Annick, another boarder, passes by, she calls out to her: “Come on, sit down!”
Sister André also has no health problems apart from muscle and joint stiffness linked to her immobility and very few daily treatmentswhich is probably “one of his longevity secrets”reports his doctor Geneviève Haggai-Driguez.
She survived Covid-19 easily, which just made her a little tired.
“She goes through everything”, “takes over in an absolutely incredible way” and “When we talk to her, she says, ‘Oh, anyway, I had the Spanish flu'”. Specialists have also observed that centenarians born before the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 had resisted better to Covid than the elderly born after.
If they show resistance, these people of extreme age have seen many of their loved ones disappearthey no longer have anyone with whom to share the memory of their lives.
The deadthey talk about it, without taboo, it’s their daily life. “On attend”said Hermine, “we are waiting for the end, death, it will happen…”. Sister André also feels ready. “All day alone with your pain, it’s not funny”, she says. Corn “the Good Lord does not hear me, he must be deaf of ears”.
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