L'CHAIM!!!

Tomorrow would have been Bubbie Channah's 86th birthday. We both have/had birthdays in July. This is my first July without my mother and my first July without phone calls at seven in the morning wishing each other a great wonderful year.

As I still mourn her death I also celebrate her life. She had a great life.

For those of you who don't know, in my mother's later years she became a junk food junkie! Honest! All those years of making us eat vegetables and balanced meals went right out the window the day she met Ronald.

It was love at first sight. She was seventy-four and I don't know how old he was. He didn't have one grey hair in his head of red curls. He was always smiling and happy to see her. She walked downtown every day to go meet him.

I didn't know if I was happy that they met every day, but the walk was wonderful for her. First she had to go down twenty stairs and then cross Ben Yehudah Street and then walk for between ten and fifteen minutes to get to his place.

After lunch...it was always lunch, she would reverse her path and come home.

She always took her cell phone so I wouldn't worry. She was good about that.

Yes. My mother was addicted to McDonald's!

One day I went with her. Proud as punch, she passed the guard who checked everyone's purse but hers. He knew her, you see.

Then we would say hello to the group of four women who always showed up exactly at 11:00 every day for coffee and a chat. I think they were my mother's age, but they only spoke Hebrew and when they met me we sat for almost a half hour talking as I answered their many questions.
They were wonderful, interesting women who were frustrated that they couldn't sit and talk to Ma.


One day I walked up to the front to get our lunches and an elderly man approached my mother. He spoke with her for a few moments and then walked away.

When I returned to the table she told me that the man had asked her if she was all right. You see, he wasn't used to seeing her sitting there without anything in front of her. He was frightened that she was ill. Somehow she managed to convey to him that her daughter was with her and she was waiting for me.

Usually, when she walked in and approached the counter her food was already waiting for her on a tray. 'But I didn't order yet,' she said. 'Oh, madam. We know exactly what you want. You want a hamburger with the sauce from the Big Mac plus extra chips without salt and diet coke without ice cubes. You want mustard, extra napkins and a knife to cut your hamburger. And sometimes you order a chocolate fudge sundae for desert.

They knew my mom. They loved my mom. My mom was steady income for McDonald's.

I have a photo in my cell phone of Ma sitting in McDonald's happy happy happy.

So, tomorrow, if you don't mind. Go get a hamburger or some chips or a chocolate fudge sundae to toast my mom!

She would love that! Me too.

L'chaim!!!

Have a great day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.