At 35 and single, Fiona Lauriol had grown used to her grandmother’s criticisms. “The one left on the shelf” she would say, barely disguising her disdain or disapproval.
Or she’d snap that she wasn’t getting any younger or prettier and needed to find herself a husband quickly as her looks weren’t improving with age. Sometimes she even used the blunt word ‘ugly.’ So not your endearing grandmotherly type. Fiona’s father fared even worse. Dominique called him by a French word too vulgar to repeat. In short tact was not in her vocabulary. You could call her the Victor Meldrew of the female sex.
I sympathise. As it happens my grandmother used to speak in audible undertones about my father. The kindest of these was to call him a butcher. Other times she would inform us that he had the heart of a murderer. For a 10 year old that is frightening.
And yet Dominique Cavanna struck lucky. When the doctor called to say Dominique, now 100, had around a week to live, nobody expected Fiona to be the one who dropped everything. Except that is exactly what she decided to do.
Much more surprisingly is how she reacted once she saw the state of her grandmother. Instead of sitting by her bed and watching her die she decided to take her grandmother on a road trip – giving her a new lease of life.
“Every day resembles the last,” Fiona explains. “It’s always the same thing. You know in advance what tomorrow will be like. You lose interest in living.”
When Doctors Give Up
Dominique had stopped eating properly, had lost significant weight, and could barely walk. The doctors called it “gliding syndrome” – meaning the person concerned has given up on themselves and life.
“That is when I proposed that we go on a motorhome trip around Europe,” Fiona says. “She asked, ‘But what is a motorhome?'”
For six months, Fiona worked to get Dominique back on her feet, helping her walk again, encouraging her to eat. Progress was slow but steady.
Then one day, Fiona walked into her grandmother’s room and found her staring at a white wall with completely vacant, distant eyes. She decided it was now or never. In the home except for the odd visit there was no stimulus.
Family Resistance
Fiona’s mother thought the idea was completely mad. (You could say she had a point.)
“What, you want to put my mother in your old camper van that isn’t even fit for her?” Fiona’s mother protested. “She uses a wheelchair and is incontinent!”
The camper van had 200,000 kilometres on it. It wasn’t adapted for wheelchairs. She was also on multiple medications.
But Fiona was certain she could make it work. The family agreed on a forty-day test run. Fiona would take Dominique to the Côte d’Azur, an area she’d always dreamed of visiting and then onto Lourdes since Dominique was a staunch Catholic. Fiona’s parents would follow in their own car, ready to step in when it all fell apart.
It very nearly did.
A Broken Nose That Changed Everything
Those forty days were a catalogue of disasters. Dominique fell and broke her nose, requiring stitches. When a violent hailstorm hit, she panicked completely, convinced France was being bombed again: wartime memories flooding back after decades.
They had to abandon their planned route. They never made it to the Côte d’Azur. Nor to Italy which was where Dominique originated from.
When they returned home to stitch her up, Fiona was certain her grandmother would want to retreat to the safety of familiar walls. She could not have been more wrong. The next morning after one overnight Dominique woke up and announced: “Okay, I’m fine now. When do we go?”
No Risk, No Gain
What followed wasn’t some Instagram-perfect intergenerational adventure. It was more a question of stop and start and gradually finding ways of sorting out what initially felt near impossible to manage.
How do you manage incontinence in a tiny camper van? How do you help a frail centenarian in and out of confined spaces? What do you do when medication schedules go awol? Or you can’t get new prescriptions? Together they all began to figure it out. Dominique became a central figure of the family and did her best to find things that worked better.
Fiona’s parents became essential. Sometimes they travelled together as a convoy. Other times they’d arrange to meet at specific points. A network of helpers emerged – people who heard about their journey and wanted to help. They arranged or told them about accessible concerts; suggested easier routes and opened their homes.
When COVID struck, they found themselves confined with other Covid refugees in Bellús, a small Spanish village near Valencia. It could have been a nightmare but instead of becoming depressed Dominique loved the sense of being part of something bigger than herself. In fact it became another unexpected adventure.
From a psychologist’s perspective her handling of this setback was particularly interesting. It’s proof that even very old and vulnerable people have the capacity to adapt to almost anything. Dominique had acquired a ‘joie de vivre’ and therefore was in a mental state to be resilient and even in her own inimitable way set an example.
“It shows that one can change at any age,” Fiona has said in a variety of interviews she has given “and with a lot of love one can do a great many things.”
Once the stay-at-home and lockdown lifted, the family then proceeded on their way. Between them all they contrived to give the then 102 years old the time of her life. As Fiona summed it up their aim was to arrange a series of surprises en route. She attended her first concert – sitting in the crowd, surrounded by music and lights she’d never experienced before.
She sang with street artists in Almería – her voice mixing with performers decades younger, strangers stopping to listen.
She travelled 450 kilometres along the Camino de Santiago in a horse-drawn wheelchair, reaching the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela like thousands of pilgrims before her.
She soaked in thermal springs at Alhama de Aragón, the hot water easing joints that had ached for years.
She guided her wheel chair down a ski slope.
She explored Portugal, crossing borders she’d never imagined crossing.
“Every single day felt new for my grandmother,” Fiona says. “She had many firsts in life, and it was that experience that revived her, giving her back the taste for life.”
From Disaffection to Affection (It’s Never Too Late)
The physical transformation was remarkable – Dominique gained weight, grew stronger, became steadier. But it was the emotional change that her granddaughter appreciated more.
This was a woman who’d been critical and caustic for as long as anyone could remember. Now that side of her was in retreat.
“The first kiss I gave her on the forehead,” Fiona recalls, “she told me not to lean over like that. She didn’t want it.”
But over time she grew more affectionate. The family were never well off. Dominique in particular had gone through the war years and was from Italy. Integrating had never been easy. But now her defences dropped.
“Afterward she kept saying ‘kiss, kiss, goodbye,'” Fiona says, “Even my father, whom she’d insulted for years, she started calling ‘the brave man.'”
After Dominique died peacefully at 103, Fiona kept her promise to write their story. Her book, ‘101 Years – Granny Goes on an Excursion,’ has sold over 10,000 copies and been translated into multiple languages.
She’s given interviews from Japan to Latin America, appeared on French television, and been contacted by families around the world facing similar situations.
“I realized clearly that it was a topic that touched everyone,” she says.
Fiona has since sold her house and dedicated herself to travelling across France in her camper van, speaking to communities about elder care and isolation. She’s visited 600 towns and counting.
Her message is urgent: France has four million isolated elderly people. In twenty years, that number could triple. The same demographic shift is happening across Europe, including the UK.
“What will we do then?” Fiona asks. “There is no age to live life fully. We must stop sidelining our elders, thinking they have no interest in life itself.”
The Epidemic of Boredom No One Talks About
What Dominique experienced – “the gliding syndrome” – is all too common. People lose interest in eating, withdraw socially, and essentially wait to die. Doctors often treat it as inevitable in the very elderly.
But Fiona’s experience suggests it might be as much about the environment as biology.
When every day is identical, when you know exactly what tomorrow will bring, when you have no control over your own life – why would you want to continue?
Dominique and others in her situation feel abandoned. Life offers them very little. What’s the point of carrying on? Apathy sets in.
On the road, that apathy lifted. Every day brought questions: Where will we go? What will we see? Who will we meet? She had to make decisions, adapt to new situations, engage with the world. She wasn’t a patient being managed. Rather she was part of a group with a shared purpose.
The Question Every Family Faces
“I think that if I had left her there where she was, she would have died a week later,” Fiona said in one interview. “because there really was no longer any reason to live.”
But once Dominique had reasons: hundreds of them, scattered across Spain and Portugal – she willed herself back into life.
For those of us with aging parents or grandparents, Dominique’s mini-resurrection poses an uncomfortable question: What if the safe, sensible option isn’t the kindest one? Convenient perhaps. But kind?
The broken nose, the hailstorm panic, the confinement with refugees – these weren’t failures. Dominique took all of the above in her stride. For her anything was better than the sterile safety of waiting for death.
Fiona Lauriol’s book ‘101 Years – Granny Goes on an Excursion’ is available in multiple languages.
WHAT YOU CAN DO – BRINGING LIFE BACK TO ELDERLY RELATIVES
Not everyone can spend three years in a camper van. But Fiona’s principles work in smaller, more manageable ways. Here’s how:
- MICRO-ADVENTURES THAT MATTER
You don’t need three years in Spain. You need Tuesday to feel different from Monday.
Start with:
- A café they’ve never been to
- A free concert in a local church
- A market in a different neighbourhood
- A short bus ride somewhere unfamiliar
The key: It must be genuinely new, not the same café or same route. Novelty is what matters.
- CREATE ‘FIRSTS’ AT ANY AGE
Dominique attended her first concert at 102. Ask your elderly relative: “What have you always wanted to try but never did?”
Common answers: seeing the sea, eating at a “posh” restaurant, going to the theatre, trying a specific food. Then make it happen. Even if it seems small to you, it can be transformative for them.
- BREAK THE ROUTINE
Audit their week: Do they know exactly what will happen each day? If yes, introduce unpredictability:
- Surprise visits at unusual times
- Unannounced outings (“Get your coat, we’re going somewhere”)
- Mystery packages in the post
- Spontaneous calls with grandchildren
- GIVE THEM USEFUL ROLES
Elderly people need to feel valued, not just entertained. Ask their advice on real problems. Give them actual tasks: addressing envelopes, proofreading emails, researching family history, planning the next family gathering. One daughter asks her 87-year-old mother to proofread work emails – her mother feels valued and gives genuinely helpful feedback.
- REVIEW THEIR MEDICATION
Fiona mentions Dominique was “knocked out by medication.” Over-medication of elderly people is rampant. Ask the doctor:
- Is this medication still necessary?
- Could the dosage be reduced?
- When was this prescription last reviewed?
Many GPs will conduct a medication review if asked.
- RESPECT THEIR RIGHT TO RISK
Dominique broke her nose on the journey. But that risk was worth it. If your relative wants to go for walks alone, eat “unapproved” foods, or take an ambitious trip – ask yourself: Is this genuinely dangerous, or does it just make me uncomfortable?
Broken noses heal. Broken spirits don’t.
- TACKLE ISOLATION
What actually helps:
- Technology with purpose: Don’t just give them an iPad – give them a reason to use it (weekly video calls, online book club, genealogy project)
- Unpredictable contact: Daily calls at random times, text messages with photos, postcards
- Voluntary organizations: Re-engage (monthly tea parties), Age UK befriending, local transport schemes
- IF THEY’RE IN A CARE HOME
You have more power than you think:
- Challenge baby talk from staff – insist on their proper name
- Request regular outings to genuinely interesting places (not just garden centres)
- Take them out yourself – you don’t need permission for day trips
- Join the relatives’ committee to push for systemic changes
- THE CONVERSATION THAT MATTERS
Ask your elderly relatives:
- What would make your days feel worth living?
- What do you still want to experience?
- If you had six good months left, what would you want to do?
Then listen. Really listen. Dominique’s answer was: anything but staring at a white wall.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Fiona saved her grandmother not by being wealthy or medically trained, but by refusing to accept that a 100-year-old woman had nothing left to live for.
You can do the same – not with a camper van and three years, but with Tuesday trips to unfamiliar cafés, surprise phone calls, genuine questions, and first experiences at any age.
Because as Fiona discovered: “One can change at any age, and with a lot of love one can do a great many things.”
Start tomorrow. Start small. But start.
