Nameless Thanks

Always get the Cheeseburger.

When my brother and I were kids, there was this one restaurant the family always frequented. We always ordered the same thing, and the car ride to the restaurant was just as exciting as the actual meal. The words “Are we there yet?” and “I’m hungry!” were uttered so many times, my parents turned up the radio to tune us out. Even parking the car was a good time, trying to find a place close to the restaurant, which happened to be on the always-busy Rue Ste-Catherine Ouest. The restaurant of choice was Mr. Steer, and they still make my favorite burger EVER.

When I come home to Montreal, I still try to get out to Mr. Steer for a bite. When I’m there, my mind is always flooded with memories of my brother and I staring at the menu and ordering our burgers, eating the bread and butter pickles out of the jar much to our mother’s dismay. Walking in there now, the floors are still slick and slippery with burger grease and/or a recent cleaning, and the booths are still too small. There is still a small plastic dispenser of Kraft French salad dressing at each table, and jars of bread and butter pickles that remind me of the old days. The burgers aren’t huge, but they are thick and very juicy. The signature ‘Suzie Q’ fries still make us say: “Check out how long and curly this fry is!” They even sell the Thrills gum behind the counter at the cash, the kind my Mom loved even though it tastes like soap.

Although the restaurant fit most of the requirements to be a dive, it was our favorite place to eat. It was Mom’s place first, when she was a kid. And then it was ours. A place we all loved. A treat we enjoyed as a family, even if Adam and I bickered and annoyed each other the entire time, and drove my parents crazy.

The Millers didn’t need fine dining. It was always about being together, sharing fries and a piece of my parents’ history. The whole process of driving downtown from the suburbs was an adventure in itself: If it was a nice night, my father would roll down the windows for us so we could people watch on Ste-Catherine. My Mom would point out the *ahem* street walkers, which probably was ill-advised for kids under 12, because we took it upon ourselves to yell “Look at the HOOKERS!!!” not really knowing what we were saying. Did I mention the windows were rolled down?

Over the years, I’ve tried many different burgers. In Toronto, my boyfriend and I were on a burger mission of sorts, trying the best of the best that our city had to offer. Still, the Mr. Steer cheeseburger is my favorite. It might not be the biggest burger, and it might not be made of bison or buffalo, but it’s delicious and it reminds me of my childhood, and my Mom. You can travel the world and try a million different flavors, but the taste of home is hard to reproduce.

One particular Mr. Steer visit will always be in my heart, and the point of this post. I’m just taking a long time to get there. Although totally possible that I’d write it someday, this isn’t just a blog post about burgers.

A few weeks before my Mom died, she asked if she could go home. We couldn’t give her the full spectrum care that she needed at our house, and the Jewish General Hospital truly took such amazing care of her it didn’t make sense to remove her from her care team. The doctors and nurses felt that no harm would be done if she was home for a day, and organized it for a Saturday afternoon. 

I’m not sure it has been mentioned on the blog before, but the placement of my Mom’s tumor was such that its size enabled it to push through her bladder and press directly onto her sciatic nerve. She had no mobility in her left leg, and was so swollen she could no longer walk. She was also hooked up to morphine, and a catheter. Coming home was going to require some effort, and she was coming home on a hospital bed.

The ambulance technicians arrived at our house, and began to carry her bed into the house. As they brought her up the steps to our front door, she softly asked them to stop. They paused on the front stoop. It was unseasonably warm out that day, almost like summer, and she told them that she wanted to feel the sun on her face. She took her arms out from under the sheets and held them up to the sun, tilting her chin up to feel the sun beaming down on her face, warming her.

They placed her gently on the sofa, where my brother and I sat by her, holding her hands. That was the last time she ever came home.

When it was time for her to return to the hospital, the ambulance technicians gingerly placed her back on the hospital bed and put her back into the ambulance. And then they created what might have been the most beautiful moment ever, simply by asking: “Is there anywhere else you’d like to go?”

Mr. Steer.

That’s where she wanted to go. She wanted a burger and Suzie Q fries.

So on arguably the busiest street in downtown Montreal, the ambulance double-parked, and the technicians waited with my Mom while my Dad went in to order burgers and fries for everyone. She didn’t eat much of her Mr.Steer burger, but the small bites she had were, in one word: “Delicious.”

My Dad always says that his one regret was that he never got the names of the ambulance technicians that day, because he so wanted to thank them for their kindness and compassion. I wrote this post today in hopes that this makes their way to them, so they know that their wonderful deed has been remembered and appreciated all these years:

On April 29^th, 2006, two ambulance technicians from the Jewish General Hospital gave my Mom, Judi Rival Miller, the gift of sunshine, love, and a trip to Mr. Steer. If you’re reading this, thank you from the Miller family. You made her day, and ours. We have never forgotten you, we just never knew your names.