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In June, 1976, my family was celebrating my mother's 34th birthday. What we affectionately called the "Brooklyn Tribal Council" had spoken: We'd be dining at Nathan's Famous. The elders—grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles—never passed on a chance to go to this Coney Island institution.
But this boardwalk banquet was different. The meal began with the indigestion usually reserved for the end: My mother had been diagnosed that day with a brain tumor.
She had been feeling fine, until she woke up one morning with a fist-sized lump behind her left ear that extended to her jaw. She went to several doctors, each of whom had a different diagnosis: enlarged lymph node, thyroid inflammation, jaw infection. The myriad treatments included a recipe of antibiotics and the extraction of most of her teeth.
Her teeth were gone, but the lump remained, so on June 3, her birthday, my mother set off to a neurologist for the tie-break. It was a tumor, and it was invasive. It was likely growing for about four years and was not compact, solid, like a meatball; rather, the tumor was the consistency of Jell-O and would have to be scooped out meticulously in a procedure that would take hours, the surgeon said.
Mom insisted she had no symptoms until the lump showed up. No headaches, no blurry vision, no balance issues. The doctor told her she had a 1 in 9 chance of surviving the surgery. Happy Birthday.
But brain tumor be damned, there was no stopping the tribe from the birthday banquet that could have served as a master class for Joey Chestnut, the Nathan's hot dog-eating champion. Nathan's was on the list, and nothing would keep us from checking that box. This was my family's "pre-war" meal. That's the progeny of a blue-collar family: First, we feast.
The orders included hot dogs, French fries and soft drinks, enough for double the amount of people in attendance. And sauerkraut, ketchup, mustard, relish and onions, too. It was the days before order-by-number meals, and the cacophony of voices yelling from behind my uncle Sal as he stepped up to the counter to place the order would have made the "Three Stooges'" razzle-dazzle routine look tame.
The Nathan's birthday dinner conversation was filled with things my 9-year-old self did not understand; politics, unions, tumors. But I recall one detail of the day with complete clarity: this was my introduction to my mom's love affair with hot dogs.
After the fuel came the fun. We'd head to the Coney Island arcade games, and my father would throw baseballs at stuffed furry clown figures. If he'd knock them off their perch, we'd win a top-shelf prize. My mom stood nearby, cheering him on. She was our forever cheerleader, always rooting for us.
The next day, she came into my room, sat on the edge of the bed and said the words no child should hear: "I'm sick, I have to go to the hospital and I may not be coming back home." She explained to me that the lump she had on her face was called a tumor and it was "a bad thing." She said the doctor was going to do his best, but there was a chance she may have to go to Heaven. "Let's not worry until we have to, OK?" she said.
It was my turn to be the cheerleader. I told God I'd be the best girl in the world if only He'd give me back my mom. The brain surgery lasted more than nine hours; my mom received the last rites halfway through the operation.
The recovery was rough, but there was a recovery. It turns out my mom was the 1 in 9. Part of my mother's head was shaved, and the nerve trauma during the surgery forced the left side of her face to droop. She couldn't stand for long periods of time and she temporarily lost some of the hearing in her left ear.
So the tumor was gone, but my mom's love affair with Nathan's remained. Maybe it was her way of celebrating; her way of giving death the middle finger.
Every birthday—and a few other days of note—my mom would request Nathan's Famous. The boardwalk banquet morphed into more intimate gatherings at various brick-and-mortar locations. And, on one rare occasion, the Nathan's food truck on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 52nd Street in Manhattan.
My mother could never say no to Nathan's. Tumor or hot dog, she was no quitter.
So, as she lay dying following heart surgery in 2021, during what would be her final hospital stay, I did what any loving daughter would do: I brought her a Nathan's hot dog.
The bedside banquet was created at home courtesy of the supermarket and with the type of precision worthy of a Michelin star. First, it was the old-school boiling in water for a few minutes. Then, the hot dogs were laid carefully in a skillet with butter, turned often until the skin was firm and brown. The hot dogs were placed to the side. Then, the split-top buns were put in the skillet for just one minute. The fries were baked, turned halfway through, with kosher salt added just before they were removed from the oven. The onion rings were fried with vegetable oil in a deep skillet. A bottle of Stewart's Root Beer was the chaser.
It was a meal to stop one's heart.
While health experts have warned that a person could shave 36 minutes off their life with each hot dog, my mother remained undeterred. "If that were true, I'd be dead by now," she would say. She knew how the sausage was made and she didn't care. Even when her heart issues persisted into her late 70s, she never gave up Nathan's.
I see my last Nathan's meal with my mother—one that fulfilled a wish while breaking hospital rules about heart-healthy meals—as a reminder that tomorrow is promised to no one. I am grateful to have enjoyed another meal of hot dogs and fries with my mom. She was an extraordinary woman. She's the role model every daughter should have: kind, loving, a fierce fighter. She exhibited tremendous grace under pressure, and I believe her time-honored mantra—"Let's not worry until we have to"—is the foundation for a happy life.
So now, each year on June 3, it will be my duty to honor my mom's birthday by eating a hot dog. Hot dogs, after all, are in my DNA. It's a tradition worth continuing, a salute to the Coney Island boardwalk birthday banquet and a reminder that my mother was a top-shelf prize.
Lion Calandra is a writer and editor in New York City. You can follow her on Twitter @LionCalandra.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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