Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera, the world’s oldest known person, has died at the age of 117.
Through a statement, her family said she died peacefully in her sleep on Monday at a nursing home in Catalonia and will be remembered for her kindness and sound advice.
“Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wished: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain.
“We will always remember her for her advice and her kindness,” wrote her family.
This was also confirmed by the Guinness World Records (GWR), which listed her as the eighth-oldest person with a verifiable age in history.
Before her demise, her family said Morera had told them her time on earth was up but she did not want them to cry once she departed.
She was happy with her life and was ready to transition to the other side.
“The time is near. Don’t cry, I don’t like tears. And above all, don’t suffer for me. Wherever I go, I will be happy,” she said in the post on her account, which is run by her family.
Born in the US in 1907, Morera has lived through several pandemics and two world wars and spent the last two decades at the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in north-eastern Spain.
Remarkably, despite her age, she fully recovered from COVID-19 in 2020 and her youngest daughter Rosa Moret said she was resilient and often looked at the positive side of life.
Morera, on her part, said longevity had a lot to do with luck as she led a normal life but ensured she stayed away from toxic people and was in constant touch with nature.
She had lived with her late husband for four decades until his demise aged 72 and they had three children, 11 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
A team of researchers from the University of Barcelona who studied her DNA to understand the causes of her longevity said her mind was ‘lucid’ and she had vivid memories of events which took place during her childhood.
Furthermore, she had no history of cardiovascular disease which is synonymous with the elderly.
Morera was officially acknowledged by GWR as the world’s oldest person in January 2023 after the death of French Nun Lucile Randon at 118.
According to the US Gerontology Research Group, the oldest living person at the moment is Japan’s Tomiko Itooka who was born on May 23, 1908, and is 116 years old.