Paradise could not wait any longer: the doyenne of humanity, French sister André, died Tuesday at the age of 118, after a life marked to the end by a love for others and a devastating sense of humour.
A few days before her 119th birthday, “she died at 2 a.m. There is great sadness, but she wanted it, it was her desire to join her beloved brother. It’s a liberation for her,” announced David Tavella, communications officer at Sainte-Catherine-Labouré’s shelter for dependent elderly (EHPAD) in Toulon (south), on the Mediterranean coast where she lived, to AFP.
Born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904 in Alès (south), this woman did not hide a certain weariness for several years: she wanted to “retire from this business”. But “God doesn’t hear me,” she confided to AFP in January 2022 during a lengthy meeting.
Blind in a wheelchair, Sister André regretted being less mobile and having lost some of her abilities.
“They say work kills. Work brought me to life. I worked until I was 108,” she said in April 2022, when she was appointed dean of humanity after the death of Japanese Kane Tanaka at 119.
No official organization awards these titles Dean or Dean, but experts agreed that Sister André was the oldest living person to date whose marital status has been verified.
The Guinness Book of Records also recorded this record on April 25th.
In her retirement home in Toulon, she has always enjoyed tasting chocolate and drinking a glass of port wine. His life was interrupted by a mass every morning. She always appeared in her nun’s habit, with a blue kerchief over her hair.
In April, Sister Thérèse, another boarding school student, explained that she carries “her mission as a servant of others”, convinced that “her deep faith” will sustain her.
The door to her modest bedroom was always left open in case someone wanted to peek in, because “being in pain alone all day is no fun.”
By 2021 she had easily crossed the Covid and become a symbol of hope that had sparked a flood of letters from around the world. She has responded to almost every request except requests for strands of hair or DNA research!
She regularly joked about the record they were set to beat, that of Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 in Arles, southern France, which they shared. But Jeanne Calment remains the person who has lived the longest in human history and whose marital status has been verified.
Coming from a non-practicing Protestant family, Sister André, written in the masculine form as a tribute to one of her three brothers whom she adored, was a governess in Paris before returning late to the order, in the company of the Daughters of Charity .
Her memory was intact to the last, she shared many memories, the dramatic loss of her twin sister Lydie at the age of 18 months or her arrival in Paris. “I had only lived in the Gard, in a small town, ugly, I arrived in a radiant city. I took care of two children”.
She worked officially until the late 1970s and then spent 30 years in an EHPAD in Savoie (Middle East), caring for sometimes younger residents, before coming to the Toulon establishment, which hosts several nuns.
She always awaited with joy the visits of her grandnephews and great-grandnephews or the visit of the mayor of Toulon, Hubert Falco, whom she appreciated very much and who expressed “his great sadness”, especially since he had not hesitated to get on his knees to save his to tie shoelaces.
During her long time on earth, Sister André will have tirelessly advised “always to love without reservation, to love without expecting anything in return, because when we love others, when we reach out to others, we are not afraid of the unknown”, she explained to David Tavella, who had become his confidant.
Because as she said, if there were two goals in life, it would be “to share one great love and not to compromise on one’s needs.”