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Dona Floripes Malheiros Garrido climbs 18 steps alone, refuses dietary restrictions, sews without glasses, and argues that old is what is useless and gets thrown away. At 103 years old, the Bahian lives to prove otherwise.
Dona Floripes doesn’t announce her arrival. She appears in a new dress, large earrings, makeup done, and a smile of someone who has time in her pocket. Anyone seeing her for the first time on Miguel Burnier Street, in the Barra neighborhood of Salvador, would hardly guess she’s over 70. The real count hits hard: 103. Born in Valência, Bahia, Dona Floripes Malheiros Garrido turns 103 years old with the street as her faithful companion, dance as her daily remedy, and Coca-Cola as a sacred ritual that no medical guide has managed to take away from her.
The number seems impossible when observing her routine. She climbs and descends, on her own, the 18 steps that connect the ground floor to the apartment where she lives. Until ten years ago, the challenge was even greater: she lived on the third floor and faced triple the stairs several times a day. It’s no exaggeration to say that Dona Flor shames many people less than half her age.
“I’m not old. Old is what is useless, gets thrown away”
She rejects the term firmly and without hesitation. “I think it’s a very ugly word. Old is what is useless, what gets thrown away. I don’t like it,” she asserts. For her, the definition of existence is different. “I don’t feel old, I feel great. I sew a lot, I crochet. I’m a person who is not to be thrown away,” she reinforces.
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This refusal is not a pose. It’s a way of living that translates into concrete actions. Dona Flor still threads the needle without needing glasses. She has sewn pants, wedding dresses, and ball gowns over the decades. Her youngest son, Vitor Garrido, a psychotherapist, has a humorous theory about his mother’s vitality: “I have a thesis that her crossfit was the sewing machine.”
The Coca-Cola that no doctor managed to prohibit
The diet of Mrs. Floripes is a chapter of its own. She drinks Coca-Cola every day, sometimes more than once. She consumes snacks, sweets, and, if her son allows, eats a chocolate bar a day. Her table is far from any restrictive menu: acarajé, abará, feijoada, and fish moqueca are included without ceremony. “I eat everything, but a little milk bean with fish has its place,” she says.
There is no dietary restriction prescribed for the active elderly woman who reached 103 years defying all logic of aging. Her blood pressure is great. Her glucose, wonderful, in her words. “Sometimes my back hurts, but then I lie down or sit, and the pain goes away,” she explains, with the lightness of someone speaking of a minor inconvenience. The cardiologist, she says, comes to her house when called. “He comes right away. He says I’m too young to have an old doctor.” The joke is hers, and so is the laughter.
The dance, the stage, and the guitar that arrived by surprise
Inside her house, Mrs. Floripes doesn’t need a partner to dance. She turns on the television, waits for a good song, and goes. She grew up attending the neighborhood recreational center with her father and never abandoned this habit. She dreamed of being a singer, but the path was different. Today, the stage returned through the door of the Culture Meetings, an event that mixes music and lectures at the Bahia Medical Association. She goes up, releases her tuned voice, and collects the applause from those who know exactly what she deserves.
More recently, a new desire emerged: learning to play the guitar. The instrument has already arrived at home, a gift. No one knows for sure when the lessons will start, but those who know Mrs. Flor know that when she decides, it happens. Her daughter says she spends hours looking at photos every time she visits, not leaving until she sees them all. It’s the same concentration with which she faced each phase of life.
Love at the window, Spanish husband, and the longing that is not in a hurry
The love story of Mrs. Floripes began at a window. Her husband, the Spaniard Vitorino, was won over in that simple setting, and the two were together for 49 years. She describes him as tall, handsome, and sure. “This one is mine. No one takes him,” she jokes, with the same sparkle of someone who still feels the scene. They had five children. One of them, Roberto, died at just over a year old, a victim of meningitis. “It left a sad memory,” she says, not hiding the pain.
Vitorino passed away at 79. Mrs. Flor thinks he left too soon. But she is not in a hurry to reunite with him. When her son Vitor dreamed that his father was coming to get her in a square and was unsure whether to tell, she was direct: “Tell him I’m not in a hurry. I’m enjoying staying here.” Someone who is 103 years old, wants to learn guitar, and still craves a cold Coca-Cola at the mall is not leaving.
Salvador has 516 centenarians. Dona Flor seems unaware of this
According to the latest IBGE Census, Salvador is home to 516 people over 100 years old, and Bahia has 5,536 centenarians. Dona Floripes is part of this group, but she clearly doesn’t see herself as a statistic. She wants to stroll in Shopping Barra, revisit Avenida Sete, go to the beach, sunbathe, swim in the sea, and return. She doesn’t give up on makeup. She doesn’t go out without large earrings. “A woman who doesn’t adorn herself, rejects herself,” is one of the sayings she carries.
Her son precisely sums up what many people notice beside her: “She is an active and disruptive elderly woman. She gives ageism a slap.” Anxiety, says Vitor, is cruel to the elderly because it invites them to wait for death in silence. Dona Floripes does exactly the opposite. And she doesn’t seem willing to change that anytime soon.
The secret she gives away for free
When asked what the formula is for reaching where she has, Dona Floripes doesn’t hesitate to find an elaborate answer. It comes out quickly and simply: “The secret to longevity is to be heartfelt, think only of what is good. And if you have no one to dance with, dance alone.”
No supplementation, no protocol. Dona Floripes’ longevity seems built on presence, affection, movement, and a healthy stubbornness not to accept that time dictates her life. She herself sums up the contract she made with life: “I feel like I’m 40, 50 years old. Thank God I have vitality. My whole life is directed by me.”
The article was originally published by Jornal Correio (correio24horas.com.br) on May 9, 2026, with reporting by Perla Ribeiro.
You reached 103 years in this article. Now the question is yours: do you believe the secret to longevity lies more in what we eat, what we feel, or simply refusing to be old? Leave it in the comments.
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