Life’s mysteries at 100 and counting

GUADALUPE Guillen went to Griffith Park in the late 1920s to look at model airplanes but wound up finding a husband. Or rather, he found her.

That’s one of the interesting things I learned when I finally met my Great Aunt Lupe, who turned 100 years old this month on the feast day of her namesake, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

My father took me to Cerritos to meet his favorite aunt, who has survived seven siblings, a husband and 18 presidential administrations. I thought that maybe she’d have some advice on how to live a long, happy life.

But rather than any grand formula for success, what I realized was that, in the end, it’s the little moments that carry us through. We all know this, I suppose, but I can’t decide if it’s a disappointing truth or a reassuring one. Part of me wanted this century-old relative to give me, Yoda-like, a formula so the force would be with me.

Humble, kind and patient with my silly questions, Lupe doesn’t see her life as part of any overarching narrative. Nor does she give a ringing endorsement of joining the exclusive century club.

Born on Dec. 12, 1906, in Jimenez, Chihuahua, Lupe arrived in Los Angeles as a young girl after her family fled the Mexican Revolution. Though today her memory is uneven and her sense of time warped, she is nonetheless lucid. Seated in an easy chair in a blue nightgown and pink slippers, she greeted me warmly and told me to sit in the chair across from her, the one with the conejos -- the pillows with embroidered rabbits.

“I never prayed to live this long, mi’ijito,” she said. “I grew up like any girl. I didn’t do nothing special.”

At first she demurred when asked about the most exciting moments of her life. “I worked,” she said. “And then I got married and had children.” She recalls making artificial flowers at a company her cousin owned on 7th Street downtown, and packing Lorna Doones and Fig Newtons for the National Biscuit Co.

I asked her what her siblings were like as children, particularly my grandmother, who was her older sister. “Oh, Enriqueta was always so peppy and liked to dance,” she said. And she admitted that her older brother had a “funny name.” “You don’t meet too many Liborios,” she said.

When I asked her what kinds of places she liked to visit as a child, she immediately thought of her mother taking her to the movie “show.” Her eyes shone when she remembered seeing her first talking picture. She liked to take the streetcar to Westlake -- now MacArthur -- Park and spend the afternoon. After arriving from Mexico, the family had lived on Burlington Avenue, west of downtown. They were lean years -- “Why should I lie?” she asked conspiratorially in Spanish -- but that made one particular childhood Christmas gift all the sweeter. “One time, Santa Claus brought me a crib with a doll in it,” she said.

Her saddest day was when her father died seven decades ago.

She makes it clear that living to be 100 is no bed of roses, and her gratitude to her daughter, Susie, who takes care of her, is clearly mixed with guilt for being a burden.

Lupe said the best thing about living so long is that she’s been able to see her children and grandchildren grow up. Among her happiest days on Earth was her 50th wedding anniversary, and she smiled as she recalled meeting her late husband, Raphael Murillo: “I was in the park with my sisters when he saw me and came up to talk.” After about a year of chaperoned house visits -- “My mother was kind of strict” -- he asked her to marry her.

You’d think that surviving everyone around you would give you a sense of uniqueness, even superiority. But Lupe maintains that her life is ultimately in God’s hands, and that he simply does not need her yet. And yet there was a twinkle in her eyes when she claimed to not know whether she’ll be “going up or down” after she dies. And the once-attractive young woman, now with thinning white hair, has not lost all vanity. “I’m not totally arrugada [wrinkled],” she said, touching her face and waiting for me to laugh.

On the drive home, my father told me how moved he becomes every time he visits his aunt. It’s not just because she was so kind to him when he was a boy. Indeed, there’s something awesome about a spirit that enables someone to charm you after 100 years of life. Not only did my Great Aunt Lupe not let me in on any particular secret, but meeting her only deepened my sense that life is still pretty much a mystery.