The World According to Bess: A Funny, Unfiltered Memoir of Life Lessons from My 90-Year-Old Mom

By Bonnie L Habyan

As we grow up, our moms are the lenses through which we see our lives-and even as adults, they anchor us and give us comfort. While our moms always offer us wisdom, when they get in their 90s, things get a little crazy-and sometimes downright hilarious.

At least, that's been true for Bonnie Lorber Habyan's 90-year-old mother Be

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legacy Launch Pad Publishing
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781956955316

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lesson One

Growing Up Bess: Do You Have to Feel Poor to Be Poor?

Mom was born Bessie Emma Reese on June 6, 1931 in her home in Baltimore, Maryland at 1521 N. Milton Avenue. As one of four children, she grew up near poverty level, which her younger brother Ken still likes to remind her (and she likes to remind everybody else). At night, they shoveled coal into a furnace to keep themselves warm, used baking soda to brush their teeth, and wrapped their heads in rags soaked in kerosene oil to kill lice. But my mom says she never felt poor. Even as a child, her perspective was positive. I guess that shows what hard work and a well-kept home can do to make children feel safe and comfortable.

Her dad Harry was a streetcar repairman who would wake early to paint houses before going to his full-time job after lunch. Grandpop, or Pop, as we all called him, was the neighborhood handyman. He often completed jobs as barter for doctor visits or homemade luxuries his family couldn’t otherwise afford, like those famous Maryland blue crab cakes. Bess’s dad worked six days a week, taking only Wednesdays off. Her mom, Hazel, was a homemaker who died prematurely from cancer at the age of 56, but Pop lived to be 87 and died in 1987. His heart just wore out. Still, 87 is not too bad considering that his diet contained so much scrapple, a regional specialty of pickled pigs feet and canned sardines. Personally, I wouldn’t even feed scrapple to a family pet, but things were simpler back then.

Bess really loved her mother. When Grandma Hazel was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, my mom and her younger brother helped take care of her until she died two years later, leaving her without a mom at 22. Bess is convinced her mother went to heaven because before her last breaths, she kept asking her if she could hear the beautiful music and kept telling her how glorious it all looked. Bess’s memories of her mom, unlike many of her short-term recollections these days, are vividly clear.

My mom has told me her mother was the quintessential homemaker who would whip up the family dinner at 1 pm in the afternoon so her dad could eat before going to work. She remembers how on Fridays, if her dad had been able to work a little overtime during the week, the family would celebrate with a piece of chocolate bark divided between the four kids. If the week had been slow, they’d get jellied orange slices or enjoy a few crunchy, sugar-coated, green spearmint leaves. That was a disappointment, but we ate ’em, Bess