On Monday May 11th, Lilian Menendez, a 104 year-old in Huntington, Long Island, completed a 14-day quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.
Ms. Menendez, a full-time resident at Apex Rehabilitation and Healthcare successfully assimilated back into the Apex community.
According to family, Ms. Menendez’s diagnoses with COVID-19 occurred on April 24th. She showed symptoms, including a fever.
She was then isolated and slowly the symptoms faded.
Last Friday, after fourteen days, she was given the clearance to return back to her own room.
Lillian “Lilli” Menendez was born in Puerto Rico on December 28th, 1918.
Nineteen-eighteen! Right in the middle of the Spanish Flu, another H1N1 virus that reeked havoc on the world. The Spanish Flu lasted from Spring 1918 into the summer of 1919, infecting 500 million people and killing approximately 50 million. Lilli beat the Spanish Flu and COVID-19 too.
Once a resident of Sarasota, Florida, Lillian Menendez, married young, raising two children primarily in New York and Florida.
Described by her family as having a “strong constitution” and someone who “always ate healthy food” she just keeps going.
If you think about it, a young Lilli could not eat organic food. There was no such thing as ‘organic’ food because all food was organic.
Take that COVID-19
In 2017, the Long Island newspaper Newsday profiled Ms. Menendez as she celebrated her 102nd birthday at Apex. In the video tribute on her birthday two years ago, she said she “feels wonderful, like a teenager.”
She said the secret to happiness was love.
She also taught valuable lessons to her granddaughter, such as anything is possible and to follow your dreams.
Anyone contracting COVID-19 and healing is a feel good story, especially in the New York area. For someone to accomplish the feat at 104 years old is a magnificent blessing that should make anyone with a heartbeat smile. This is truly a tale of the human condition prevailing. Blessings all around.
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