By Andrea Hargraves 
At the age of 106, for his ‘grandfather’, a nickname he had acquired since moving to a house in Aveiras de Cima, it helped him be born healthy and live a life of ‘rule’. It sounds simple, but deciphering longevity is still a challenge to science.
When Francisco Felipe was born, Germany declared war on Portugal in the context of World War I and started the thirteenth government of the First Portuguese Republic. 1916 was a year full of war, as it unfolded quietly every day in the village of Lapa, in Cartaxo, where he was born. The same calm with which the centenary faces a time that passes without major riots in Lar Nossa Senhora da Purificacao, in Aveiras de Cima, where he moved four years ago.
With white hair and a striped shirt, Francisco Filipe, whom everyone treats affectionately as “Little Grandpa”, welcomes O Mirante to the institution’s garden. The sunlight hurts his eyesight, which no longer allows him to read the thick letters in the newspapers, which were once his favorite pastime. He traveled the roads and trails in his favorite mode of transportation, the bike, which arrived before he had enough money to buy a gray Ford. Now, he says, he no longer gets out of his wheelchair when he leaves the bed sheets in the morning. As a rule, he gets up before the staff reaches the common room to help him with cleanliness and clothes he no longer chooses. “All my life I got up early to go to work and tend the garden,” he says, muttering his breath about the vegetables he planted and harvested and presented to his wife, Rosa Paolo, to make soup.
Memory is getting weaker every day. It is more difficult to talk about the present today than to travel back to the past. These are more obvious, but sometimes confusing. “There are better days and worse days, and it is normal with age,” warns supervisor, Elda Gaspar, a domestic worker who does not leave the perennial during the conversation. Francisco Felipe leans in and laughs at once, each time the question is about his youth. I rode my bike to dance with girls my age. Then, at the age of twenty, he married Rosa, a “rich woman”, with whom he had a daughter and a son, whom they visited regularly.
Accepting age restrictions is part of the aging process.
Aging was a smooth process for Francisco Felipe, who even lived past the age of 100 in his home in Lapa, receiving support at home. He walked with the help of a walker until his legs failed at the age of 102. He enthusiastically admits that his health has always been made of iron. “Thank God I got it. Health and luck in life are what he asks for when he goes to Mass,” on Sunday, accompanied by his wife Rosa. In 2021, he was a home user who tested positive for Covid-19, an illness that passed through his body without significant symptoms and without leaving traces.
Francisco Felipe was born and lived with his parents and brothers in a mill they used to grind grain, an activity that supported the family. Following in his parents’ footsteps, he became a mill at the age of 11, when he left primary school. As an adult, the “jack of all trades” on the extinct Junta de Freguesia da Lapa, had been united with the Ereira since parishioners gathered. “Now I can do nothing anymore,” he says without much regret, succumbing to the limitations of his age.
Elda Gaspar listens to him tenderly and helps to amplify the question in his ear: “What is the secret of living all these years, Grandfather?”. Francisco, shoots “I don’t know!”. Then he tries to find a more complete answer to justify his longevity: “I’ve always had a lot of sense and I’ve been good, I loved sharing what I had.” As the conversation continues quietly, the lonely centenarian at Aveiras de Cima social center and parishioner once again complains of outside light and heat. “What matters is that one of these days is cooler. The heat was intense, sometimes very intense,” he concludes, before Elda Gaspar takes him into the living room where the users closest to him greet him enthusiastically.
longevity equation?
Exceeding the age of 100 remains a mystery to science, with many unanswered questions in the biology of aging. There are studies that argue that centenarians may be carriers of an unusual genetic variation that extends their lifespan. Others establish a relationship with the regenerative capacity of DNA; There are also those who argue that the formula is a structured lifestyle, in which healthy eating and physical exercise predominate; There are still scholars who study the relationship between longevity and spirituality. And a 2019 study by researchers at Boston University argues that positive life behaviors make us live longer.
Life expectancy is stagnating
The life expectancy at birth of the Portuguese population has decreased by an average of 4.1 months due to deaths linked to Covid-19. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, life expectancy from 2019 to 2021 was estimated at 77.6 years for men and 83.3 years for women, which translates to a decrease of about 4.8 months for men and 3.6 months for women. In 1970, life expectancy was set at 67.1 years, and only in 2001 did the average reach 80.1 years for the first time. Portugal currently has over five thousand centenarians and is expected to double by 2050.