Key points
- Olympia Suleiman celebrated her 100th birthday with family and friends.
- Positive thinking and keeping busy are the secrets to a happy old age, she says.
- She emigrated to Australia from Lebanon in 1970.
Ms Suleiman told SBS Arabic24 that by using this technique, of only counting the days, she was actually only 50 in her mind.
With that frame of mind, she said she deliberately chose 'younger fashion' styles.
"I refuse to dress like an old lady," she said.
"I don’t feel that I am 100 years old and I don’t like to wear elderly lady clothes. I buy clothes for ladies in their 50s and 60s."
Having outlived both of her sons and her husband, she said her memories were a way she connected to the past, in particular growing up in Diman in Lebanon.
She celebrated her birthday milestone with friends and family at the Kingsgrove Community Centre in Sydney alongside the NSW Minister for Seniors and Multiculturalism Mark Coure who popped in to deliver a special certificate.
Ms Suleiman says she is also eagerly awaiting a birthday card from King Charles III. The reigning Monarch traditionally sends a card to centenarians in Commonwealth countries and UK overseas territories.
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Comment: Making ageing positive
Ms Suleiman's birthday fell in October around the same time that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) announced that Australia's life expectancy was now the third-highest in the world.
The ABS data shows life expectancy at birth is now 85.4 years for females and 81.3 years for males.
The combined male and female figure is 84.32 years, putting Australia behind only the principality of Monaco, and Japan, according to global data from the United Nations.
Ms Suleiman says her son Hamid had been the first to emigrate to Australia in 1966, after which her husband Merchid decided to visit him to check on his situation.
After a year, he sent a message to Ms Suleiman to apply for immigration to Australia and pack up their things for the move.
Ms Suleiman said she and the couple's other son and three daughters arrived in Australian on August 10, 1970.
The family settled in Marrickville for 25 years before the couple moved again to Punchbowl after their children all married and left home.
On life in Australia in the 1970s, Ms Suleiman said: “There were not so many people, and $20 dollars was enough to buy groceries for the family for a whole week.”
She said she had continued to make her own bread and hand-washed the family's clothes because she didn't want to buy a washing machine until the house was paid off.
Ms Suleiman said: “I raised my children the same way I was brought up. I taught them to love their motherland, Lebanon and not forget it, and to love Australia at the same time, because it is the country that embraced us. It is a country for rich and poor alike.”
Ms Suleiman says she has survived breast cancer as well as the passing of her husband and two sons by remaining positive.
She said she refused to wear 'old lady clothes' or to use a walking stick.
She says she focuses on being available for her 50 grandchildren and great-grandchildren and regularly makes tabbouleh, fattoush and stuffed kibbeh to share. She also enjoys growing her own herbs in her garden.
Ms Suleiman said: “I don't regret anything in my life. I don't think I've done anything wrong, but one dream I wasn't able to achieve was to work in Australia because my husband refused to let me get a job."
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