For many par­ents, liv­ing long enough to see their chil­dren ful­fil their dreams, is a dream it­self. But the daugh­ter of 110-year-old Irv­ing Joseph, of Ari­ma, said this is her fa­ther’s re­al­i­ty,

“One of his dreams for me per­son­al­ly was to be­come a teacher, you know he al­ways want­ed me to be­come a teacher and I was like ‘no’ and even­tu­al­ly I end­ed up turn­ing out to be a teacher and I know he is very hap­py about that,” his youngest daugh­ter Josanne Joseph said.

The su­per­cente­nar­i­an who cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day at his St Joseph Street home on Tues­day, sur­round­ed by his loved ones, was paid a spe­cial vis­it by Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) for the area and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. She said she has made room in the cal­en­dar for Joseph's birth­day every year since he turned 100 years old.

Equipped with a birth­day cake and his favourite cel­e­bra­to­ry drink of John­ny Walk­er Black and Co­conut Wa­ter, Beck­les knew ex­act­ly what the for­mer pub­lic ser­vant would en­joy.

“I’ve been vis­it­ing him for a long time, more specif­i­cal­ly I’ve been here when he was 100 and there there­after every year,” Beck­les said.

She shared that the old­est man liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go was ho­n­oured by the Min­istry of Works where he was em­ployed. She re­called the sto­ries of him and his friends walk­ing to Paria where he worked.

In a brief con­ver­sa­tion with Joseph, Beck­les asked him how he was feel­ing and he replied that he was feel­ing al­right. She then com­ment­ed on his out­fit, a white shirt and blue jeans. The MP then asked if he was in any pain but Joseph replied, that he was feel­ing good.

His daugh­ter Josanne re­mem­bered his easy­go­ing na­ture when she was grow­ing up. She re­called how his rod of cor­rec­tion was ac­tu­al­ly a hat and he al­ways al­lowed her to go to nu­mer­ous events even when her moth­er said no.

“Dad would say nah, let her go and he will find that mon­ey,” she shared.

She said Joseph was very gen­tle, es­pe­cial­ly with the girls and would take them out­side of Ari­ma of­ten to ex­plore the coun­try.

“He used to like to take us out, prob­a­bly show off his girls, so he would go and take us by the mar­ket there or go down South,” she said.

And now that her dad has been around to see his chil­dren grow, his daugh­ter said there was one more goal to ful­fil.

“One of his dreams al­so is for all his chil­dren to own their own homes... we hop­ing that will come true,” she shared.