Question: How can one put enough candles in a birthday cake for one of the oldest survivors of COVID-19? Answer: With 117 candles, you cannot.
A French nun believed to be the second oldest person in the world was celebrating her 117th birthday in style on Thursday. There were plans for champagne and red wine, a banquet with her favorite dessert, a mass in her honor and other goodies to toast Sister André’s exceptional longevity through two world wars and a recent coronavirus infection.
“It’s a great day,” said David Tavella, communications manager for the nuns’ nursing home in the city of Toulon, in the south of France. “She is in great shape. I went to see her this morning. She is very happy. She wanted me to tell her the day’s schedule again. ”
It was packed. Some of Sister André’s nephews and grandchildren were expected to participate in a morning video call for her, and the Bishop of Toulon was to celebrate a mass in her honor.
“She was very proud when I told her. She said, ‘A Mass for me?’ ”Said Tavella.
The menu for her birthday banquet included an entry of foie gras, followed by capon with fragrant mushrooms and wrapped with roasted Alaska, the nun’s favorite dessert.
“Everything washed down with red wine, because she drinks red wine. It is one of its longevity secrets. And a little champagne for dessert, because 117 years have to be roasted ”, said Tavella.
As for packing dozens of candles on a cake, “we stopped trying a long time ago,” he added. “Because even if we made big cakes, I’m not sure if she would have enough breath to blow them all up. You would need a fire extinguisher. “
Sister André’s birth name is Lucile Randon. Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people aged 110 and over, lists it as the second oldest living person known in the world, behind only a 118-year-old woman in Japan, Kane Tanaka.
Tavella told French media earlier this week that Sister André tested positive for the coronavirus in mid-January, but she had so few symptoms that she didn’t even realize she was infected. Its survival has made headlines in France and beyond.
“When the whole world suddenly started talking about this story, I understood that Sister André was a bit like an Olympic flame in a ‘world tour that people want to catch, because we all need a little hope at the moment, ”Tavella said.
By strange coincidence, Tavella was celebrating her 43rd birthday on Thursday.
“We used to joke that she and I were born on the same day,” he said. “I never tell myself that she is 117 because it is so easy to talk to her, regardless of age. Only when she talks about the First World War as if she had lived it do I realize: ‘Yes, she survived!’ “