Nine Christmases ago, Ed MacDonald decided to give his mom Georgina a gift that keeps giving: monthly lunch dates. “Part of my Christmas gift from my son was this little lunchbox, and in the lunchbox was a note saying, ‘Lunch for life.’ So, I look forward to this,” says Georgina. Since the 2017 holiday, they’ve enjoyed more than 100 lunches out together. “I don’t even know how this occurred to me but, I decided I wanted to make sure that I started seeing her more regularly,” says Ed. He calls himself a “typical guy,” noting he can be bad at keeping in touch with people. “It’s easy for time to slip by, especially when you’re busy working and then all of a sudden you realize that it’s been a couple of months since we’ve seen each other, so I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen anymore,” he says. In 2018, she was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer and even then, they didn’t miss their lunches together. “Time with your kids is always important, I mean, no matter what you’re doing,” says Georgina. Through the COVID-19 pandemic they also managed to make their lunch dates work. “We had one lunch where Ed showed up in a parking lot with a six-foot table, and then he went across the street and bought Chinese food and that was one of our COVID lunches,” says Georgina. Ed lost his dad a while back, and he says that sort of thing never goes away. “It’s easy for time to slip by, you know, as I age, I become increasingly aware of that, and I enjoy spending time with my mum,” he says. “For young people out there who don’t know what to get, we’re old. Like, I’m old. So, I have everything, it’s hard to find something to give your parents,” says Georgina. “Give them the gift of time.” With files from CTV News Atlantic’s Mike Lamb For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
