Usually I look at Facebook in the morning when I wake up.  Today one of my friends had posted a video that was taken “behind the scenes” of McDonald’s. It was a factory in Frenso where they make all the burgers.  I guess they are doing a Q & A to show what’s in their food.

I don’t eat at McDonald’s anymore unless there is no where else to get coffee or I have to use their bathroom.  I have been vegetarian for about 26 years, except for a short period when I first met my current man. It was the honeymoon phase and he still ate meat so I did too.  I started to get those familiar pains in my chest soon and felt like shit so I stopped eating meat again.  My dad died at 60 of arteriosclerosis, that is another reason why I changed my diet.

After I watched a little of the McDonald’s Q and A, my mind wandered back to the 70’s when my mom would take me to McDonald’s after she got off of work. I’d always get a happy meal and she would get the same but not as the “happy meal” and she’d always get McDonaldland cookies. She loved those ones that were in the box, I don’t think they sell them anymore. She would always finish her fries and try to eat some of mine and I would get so mad.

In 2013 my  mom came to live with me after I had moved to Kailua on the island of Oahu. She now had ovarian cancer, it had come back for the second time and I didn’t want to be away from her but I also didn’t want to move to Seattle where she lived.  I was surprised at how frail she was when she came and I was surprised I had taken this sort of “mom” role with her. I am an only child and never had kids so it’s really interesting to look back and see how I was frantic most of the time.  If she stayed out late and I couldn’t get a hold of her, I’d go out and start looking for her.  I would tell her what she could and couldn’t eat, especially fast food. I hooked her up with this older dude I knew from an AA meeting who was her age and they got along really well.  They’d go to Waikiki together, take the bus up to the North Shore and just hung out so she wasn’t so lonely when I was working.

One day I got home from work and Dallas, my boyfriend, who also just got home told me he just saw my mom and her friend at McDonald’s. I almost lost it but then I was like….what am I doing? I don’t know how long she’ll be with us – she should be having the time of her life – and I started to let go. My mom died on May 1, 2014. She was with me and Dallas, in our little home in Kailua.  Worst day of my life and nothing in the world can hurt me anymore because that was the absolute worst thing that has ever and that will ever happen to me.