SHE can no longer move around nor recalls things from her past and has stopped making the rich coconut oil that she is accustomed to.

And while she speaks only when she feels the need to, 102-year-old Adassa Johnson was sure of one thing:

“Mi just praising my God,” she said as she sat in her bedroom at her home in Long Bay, Portland two weeks ago.

Born March 13, 1913, Johnson received a stroke 20 years ago which rendered her unable to move about, while two years ago she began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease which has robbed her of her memory.

“Mi nah tell them nothing,” were the next words from the centenarian’s lips as she declined to respond to questions from the news team, leaving her family to speak on her behalf.

Johnson was born and raised in Needham Pen, St Thomas. When she was older and able to go on her own, she relocated to Arcadia in the parish. From there she went to England where she spent three years.

She got married to the father of five of her children in England — her partner having migrated there before her.

“My father went away first and take her up and they got married in England,” Lorris Stephens, Johnson’s 70-year-old daughter explained. “Afterwards both of them came out and bought this piece of place and lived here until my father died and she started running things. She had eight children, but five were for him.”

Johnson’s husband died over 20 years ago, while one of her eight children also passed away a few years ago.

Stephens explained that her mother was a fish vendor, selling in Port Morant, St Thomas. She also worked on a prominent property in that parish, tending to crops.

“She was a good mother to us,” Stephens said. “She toiled hard to help us in growing up because things were tough in those times. She went away and left us with our aunt but she sent money to support us.”

After Johnson got the stroke she was unable to walk about, but, according to her family, God turned her situation around and she was once again able to walk around the house. But at 102, she can no longer do that by herself and has to be assisted by family.

Johnson enjoys Ensure supplement drink, soup, porridge and soft food.

“I feel proud ’til I cannot be proud anymore to know that she live to be 102,” Stephens said with a bright smile.

“When I go out and hear people talk about their mom … that they sorry their mom was not alive, I feel good to know that she is around to this age. We have to do the best we can for her, because God knows the reason why she is here ’til this moment.”

Stephens said some lessons her mother taught them as children growing up was to live loving and kind to all they come in contact with.

Loxley Johnson, the centenarian’s 69-year-old son, who himself received a stroke some years ago, said that while he never lived with her all his years as a child, he knew she was kind and never loved to inflict physical punishment.

“Anything she asked you to do for her and you don’t go at it immediately she would get rash or go and do it herself,” he said.

Karen Johnson, the centenarian’s granddaughter attested to the fact that Johnson was herself a very loving and caring person.

“When my mother left us, it was my grandmother who took up the responsibility of growing me. And then she took care of all of her grandchildren and all who came in the house,” Karen said. “She was very, very loving and caring to all of us.”

She recalled that Johnson would boil coconut oil “from scratch” on a regular basis for their personal use, as it was something she said the centenarian believed in.

“We grow up on coconut oil and she used to live on coconut oil. They didn’t use any other oil,” she added.

Though she is no longer able to attend, Johnson has been a member of the Long Road Baptist Church for a number of years and whenever the Alzheimer’s is not affecting her as much, she is only too happy to sing songs of praise and give thanks to God.