Few people in their early fifties can boast of having a grandparent still alive.

“It’s quite special! », exclaims Guylaine Laliberté, granddaughter of Florence Beaupré. At 105, her grandmother is the dean of Résidence Chénier, in Saint-Eustache.

Impressive, you say? There is more. Centenarians like her, the establishment has three out of less than 100 residents.

Denise Ménard is the latest to join the club. It was precisely on the occasion of its anniversary that the establishment opened its doors to the media, on a recent afternoon in June.

Slightly hunched over in her chair, she posed in front of the cameras, her son with a head as white as her on her arm. “I never thought I’d make it this far! “, she exclaims, no longer knowing what to do with the bouquets of flowers and greeting cards piling up on her frail knees.

Well dressed, the three stars of the day were seated side by side in the small cafeteria decorated with golden balloons.

Sitting between her cadets, Florence Beaupré absorbed the moment, a tear beading in the corner of her clear eyes. His deafness made communication difficult, his two sons took over in front of the admiring interlocutors.

The spitting image of their mother, they describe an active woman, curious about everything, who prefers to be with young people. “Well, 70-year-olds,” puts Robert Laliberté into perspective.

“I don’t know how much love there was between them,” wonders Guylaine Laliberté. But those were the times: “Married life wasn’t necessarily a choice. »

“Your grandfather chose me because I was deaf and I wouldn’t live long. He must be rolling over in his grave,” his grandmother even told him one day.

Even at an advanced age, she maintains most of her activities. She first traveled to Europe at age 86 and went camping until she was 102.

“She’s been off her medication for two years! », wonders her granddaughter.

So what’s his secret? Moving every day? Eating healthy?

“We’ll give it to you,” Robert Laliberté begins, lowering his voice. “She eats her steak almost raw,” he whispers in our ear with a knowing smile.

There are more and more centenarians in Quebec. There were 3,200 in 2021, 78% of whom were women. According to projections, their number could jump to more than 44,400 in 2066.

“I don’t think there’s any big secret there…” says Denise Ménard. “I take it one day at a time. I try to keep myself busy. »

“She lived in a building with three or four apartments. Her grandmother made soup and she would go up and take bowls to other families who were hungry,” says her son Richard Richer’s partner.

In 1945, she married the man who would remain the only man in her life. The couple settled in Longueuil, where they raised their two children.

“It was the love of his life, his Gérard,” says his son. He died a long time ago, aged 73.

After all these years, she has kept a letter he wrote to her on a piece of birch bark while he was stationed in Newfoundland during World War II.

This is the reality of all centenarians. Grief comes with the title. At 100, Denise Ménard is the only survivor of her brothers and sisters, in addition to having lost her daughter.

“Today, his world is us. Her children, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren,” confides Richard Richer, casting a look full of tenderness towards her.