Many people struggle to reach their eighties and nineties, but not all.
Lucia DeClerck, 105-years-old, has surpassed her hundreds, however, and she is still going strong. She has two things she believes in for the rest of her life.
“Pray. Pray. Pray, ”she said. “One step at a time. No junk food. ”
In addition to saying prayers, she has a strange diet that may want to give thanks for her long life: nine, yellow raisins with gin juice every morning.
“Fill a jar,” DeClerck said. “Nine races a day after sitting for nine days.”
Like using charcoal to brush teeth or drinking a raw egg out of a glass, DeClerck’s children and grandchildren both remember her eating these raisins for as long as they can remember. This has become part of her daily routine.
“We’d just think, ‘Grandma, what are you doing? You are crazy. Now we have the smile. She overcame everything that came her way, ”her 53-year-old granddaughter Laghan Shawn O’Neil said.
DeClerck has recently lived a 19-year-old Covid and is back to her daily routines after being away from her nursing home for about two weeks. Covid-19 is just one of many events DeClerck has had in his lifetime.
She was born in Hawaii in 1916 to parents from Spain and Guatemala.
Since then, she has witnessed two major wars, living there, the Spanish flu and the deaths of three men and a child.
Prior to settling at Mystic Meadows Rehabilitation and Nursing in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, she moved around pretty much. She moved from Hawaii to Wyoming, then back to Hawaii before moving to New Jersey with her older son.
“It’s just a prime example of persecution,” said O’Neil. “Her mind is so sharp. She will remember things when I was a child that I don’t even remember. ”
On her 105th birthday, January 25, DeClerck learned she had contracted the virus just days after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to home administrator Michael Neiman.
According to Neiman, she showed very few symptoms and in about two weeks she was back in her room. This is where she was always seen wearing her iconic knit hat, trademark sunglasses, and holding her rosary beads.
After celebrating her birthday, DeClercks’ family found out she had contracted the virus. They hoped for the best but feared for the worst.
“We were worried,” said her 78-year-old son Phillip Laws.
“But she has incredible potential,” he said. “And she has that rosary – all the time.”
DeClerck was one of 62 residents at Mystic Meadows who contracted the virus, in which four of the patients died, Mr. Neiman said.
“We are as cautious as possible,” he said, “but this is finding a way to get involved. ”
Having DeCleck already vaccinated helped her survive. That and the possibility that raisins are a secret drug treatment with gin.
There are always stories of people in the hundreds, living their lives and struggling. It’s rare, though, when they’ve faced challenges like DeClerck. Covid-19 is now just another road in its rearview mirrors.
“Now we’re all running out and getting Mason nuts and yellow raisins and trying to catch it,” O’Neil said.
Who knows if nine raisins with gin juice are a powerful support for a lifetime.
We know they at least work for someone, though.
Tomás Diniz Santos is a writer living in Orlando, Florida. It covers news, entertainment, and pop culture topics.