This modest woman celebrated her 117th birthday on Tuesday. Looking back at a life that spanned three centuries, she spoke about her difficult fate. She went through an unhappy marriage that began with blackmail, lost her only son? and she also ate, to put it mildly, unbalanced.
Emma Morano, the oldest of eight siblings she survived, was born on November 29, 1899, in the Piedmont region of Italy.
This year, she officially became the oldest person living in the world. Before her, this title belonged to Suzanne Mushatt Jones. Emma is also the only living person who was born in the 18th century.
Raw eggs and cookies
As Morano admits, she owes part of her longevity to genes. Her mother lived to be 91, and several sisters lived to be 100. For the rest, Emma believes, it is a matter of the diet, which included three raw eggs daily. Moreover, she adhered to such a diet for over 90 years in a row!
She began to eat this way even when she was a young girl. After being diagnosed with anemia shortly after World War I, the doctor advised her to cut her diet to two raw eggs and a cookie.
“She defies all health advice,” her physician Carlo Bava told AFP.
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"Emma eats very few fruits and vegetables," he comments. "When I met her, she only ate three eggs a day: two raw in the morning, then an omelet at noon and chicken for dinner."
Despite this, the doctor noted that Emma gives the impression of an "eternal" person.
Marry me or die
There is one more thing that Emma Morano can be respected for, besides extraordinary longevity. When her young son died at the age of six, she kicked her tyrant husband out of the house.
According to her, this marriage has never been "healthy." She was in love with a young man killed during the First World War and did not want to be with anyone but him.
But she told the newspaper La Stampa that at that time she simply had no other choice.
“He told me:“If you are lucky, you will marry me. If you're unlucky, I'll kill you. I was 26. I married him,”comments Emma Morano.
After some time, she decided that she could no longer live like this. Although she kicked her husband out, they remained married until he died in 1978. Emma worked until the age of 75. She decided that she would never marry again.
“I don’t want anyone to rule my life,” she told the New York Times.
It was this statement that inspired people to create a musical performance. It contains the story of her life in prose and dance. The show takes place in the northern Italian city of Verbania, where Morano has lived most of her long life. The authors of the play believe that Emma "represents a woman's courage, rebelling against domestic violence."
It turns out that strength of mind is sometimes even more important than proper nutrition.
IVAN MATYUKHIN