103-Year-Old COVID-19 Survivor Surprised With Parade Put Together By Friends And Family
Della Hathorne turned 103 years old on Saturday (January 30), a milestone she likely didn’t expect to reach when she was battling COVID-19 last year. To celebrate, her friends and family planned a touching surprise.
KOCO 5 reports that the Oklahoma woman was treated with a sweet, socially-distanced birthday parade to celebrate her incredible milestone. One family member described Hathorne as "very emotional" throughout the parade.
"She said, 'I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry.' And I said, 'Well, that's what you have sleeves on your jacket so you can wipe your tears with that,'" the family member told KOCO. "So that's what she did."
They added: "She does everything for everybody else's. It's time to do something for her.”
"I didn't know that they were gonna do all of that," Hathorne told the news outlet.
Hathorne is reportedly a mother of seven, grandmother of 26 and great-grandmother to more than 100. In mid-October, she battled the coronavirus and spent almost two weeks at Mercy Hospital Logan County in Guthrie, Oklahoma. She says life is precious and she is grateful for being here.
"Treat everybody right, treat everybody the same, and then try to eat good," she said.
"Can't believe it,” her son, Lorenzo, told KOCO when she was released from the hospital. “Because all of the rules are you don't make it through if you're a certain age because it's hard on them.”
