Source: Courtesy of / TikTok
A video of a Black matriarch joyously celebrating her 104th birthday has warmed the hearts of nearly 2 million TikTok users.
A clip of the matriarch’s birthday bash has received over 1.7 million likes and been bookmarked over 135,600 times. Surrounded by loved ones, the blessed elder blew out candles on two epic cakes. One was a colorful and glitter-dusted treat with a beautiful portrait of her in the middle. The other was technically a trio of cakes — in the numbers “1 0 4” for her special day.
The great-grandmother wore a “Happy Birthday” tiara on her cute, curly afro of stunning white and greying curls. She posed for photos and sported the warmest of smiles.
Tens of thousands wished the blessed elder happy birthday underneath the upload, which was shared Sept. 27. Many also fawned over how good the 104-year-old looked for her age. They emphasized that her Black hadn’t cracked — and that the great-grandmother looked more so in her 60s.
“Happy Blessed Birthday Beautiful Queen. May God continue abundantly blessing you.”
“She looks amazing for 104. God bless her.”
“What a queen!! She doesn’t look a day over 60!”
“Unbelievably amazing!! I would think she’s in her 60s.”
“You sure she not 65, that women look healthy and blessed.”
In a separate video, the great-grandmother shared insight on how she reached her precious old age.
“I just lived and didn’t let things hurt me,” the Black queen noted. “And if they did, I decided that I would cry for maybe five, ten or fifteen minutes, according to how much it hurt. And then I’d go sleep.”
A centenarian is someone who’s reached their 100th year of life or lived to be even older than a century.
Interest in the term significantly went up in the United States over the past year, according to Google Trends, and in August, Netflix dropped a show called Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. The series explored global hotspots, such as Okinawa and Sardinia, where an unusual amount of people live to see past their 100th birthday. The only place in the U.S. featured in the show was Loma Linda, California.
African American centenarians reportedly make up 12% of all those in the United States, according to a chapter dedicated to the population in a 2023 book edited by two board-certified doctors.
The chapter unpacked several factors contributing to whether an African American will become a centenarian, including biological, sociological and psychological.
“From a psychological standpoint, African Americans compared to white older adults have lower or similar rates of mental disorders, lower suicide rates but higher rates of Alzheimer’s Disease,” noted a summary of the chapter. “African American centenarians have demonstrated tremendous resilience for centuries, relying on family, friends, community, religious resources, and adaptive psychological strategies to maintain a life purpose.”
A study published in 2021 surrounding the life experiences of African-American centenarians noted similar findings to those above. It stated that the population “possessed survival skills and various support systems including community and religious/spiritual support,” possibly buffering them “against the impact of cumulative racial inequality.”
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