The oldest person you've met.

My great-grandmother lived to 101 and was in good shape physically and mentally until a few months before she died. She was weary of life, though.

Once when I was about 12, she and I were sitting in the day room of her nursing home watching something on tv and she turned to me, eyes wide and nostrils flared, and said to me, “Son, the worst thing in the world is to live forever.” She then turned back to the tv and we sat in silence.

It scared the shit out of me.

My great aunt is still alive at 99. That reminds me. I should visit more often. We chat and play cribbage.

The conductor of my university’s wind ensemble lived to be 101, and when a bunch of us returned to campus to celebrate his 99th birthday he was very full of life and remembered most of us who had graduated about thirty years earlier

My mother. She's in her 103rd year.

What’s that old man got bouncing in the bag?

I’ve shared this story before on DL.

My great grandparents on my mother’s side of the family both lived until 105. They lived in their own home with one of their 14 children. They were both mentally sharp and could carry on long , deep conversations. My great grandfather was mobile, and drove into his mid-nineties.

When I graduated from college, they sent me a $100 savings bond (remember savings bonds?) They were sweet, wonderful people.

My great grandfather died first, and his wife died three months later. We all assumed she died from grief. There’s was an 86 year love story.

It's nice they had each other r6. My ex bf's mother is 97 and all of her friends are dead. She was widowed at 65 and never remarried or even dated again.

My friend's father is 103. He just went into a nursing home because he's a fall risk but mentally he's still all there.

My maternal grandmother, who lived to 102.

When she was about to turn 100 her youngest daughter asked, "Ma, how does it feel to be 100 years old?"

Gramma looked at my Aunt J sadly, shook her head, and said "That's too long for anyone to live."

Her entire life she hid the fact that her big brother had been brutally lynched in 1911, but when she made 100, all the memories came tumbling out. Her husband who'd volunteered to fight in WWI two years before the US entered it, fighting under the French flag and was gassed at Ypres only to come home and have the local Klan threaten him and his fellow Black GIs with death if they didn't stop wearing their uniforms; and who died in 1947 of constant seizures brought on by the chlorine gassing he'd taken 30+ years earlier. Her father, who she said was "shot down like a dog" outside his own church, the babies she'd had to bury, and so much more.

Made all of us family members see her so very differently. What a strong woman she was.

A grandmother who lived to 105.

She had the same thing where she didn’t understand why she was still alive towards the end.

my landlady died this year and was 102

My great Aunt Kate lived until 105 yrs old. Her only health issue was dry skin.

My grandmother was 98 when she died. She was still quite 'with it' up until the end. A few months before dying she just randomly told my mom and me that she did not want to be buried in her family plot/area. She wanted to be cremated. She said "I have to admit, the thought of even my skeleton being surrounded by my horrible family is too much for me." It was shocking, but funny. So, we respected her wishes and had her cremated.