The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kids toast mom’s memory with Tab
Kathleen Berger died in May from coronavirus-related causes, leaving behind eight kids and a legacy encapsulated by a bright pink soda can.
Berger, who was 73, was a voracious consumer of Tab, the saccharin-infused cola known for its distinctive packaging, vaguely metallic taste and aerobic studio vibe. Introduced in 1963 by the Coca-Cola Co., it was once the nation’s dominant diet soda, producing a legion of fans so hard-core they called themselves Tabaholics.
But Tab lost its mojo over the decades, surpassed by Diet Coke and other carbonated descendants, and Coke finally dispatched the brand last month. The announcement led to hoarding that soon made Tab, which was already hard to find, as rare as a white truffle.
As of Tuesday, the asking price on eBay for a single can went as high as $25.
That left Berger’s children, who are spread from coast to coast, with a challenge: locate enough Tab in the wild so they could give a final, video chat-enabled salute to their mother.
Berger, a writer, started drinking Tab in the 1970s after going on the Scarsdale diet, a high-protein, low-carb weight-loss regimen.
“Tab was kind of her treat to get through it,” Matt Berger recalled. “She ended up losing a whole bunch of weight and never gave up the habit.”
She drank several cans a day and sometimes walked around the house singing the jingle, keeping her allegiance even as the soda grew hard to find. After having a stroke in her 50s, Berger’s short-term memory grew foggy, but her kids found that when they offered her a Tab, the
years snapped back into focus.
Berger spent her final months in a nursing home outside Boston, and when COVID-19 swept through in the spring, she became ill. Her family could only visit through a window before she died May 20. When the nursing home returned her belongings, her children discovered two cans of Tab among the items.
When the news of Tab’s demise broke, Berger’s kids joked in a group chat that the soda had gone under because their mom was no longer around to support it. But that led to a serious plan.
“We all said that we should try to find some to have one last Tab for Mom, because she’d be so upset by [the discontinuation],” Matt Berger said. “The perfect way to end Tab and to honor my mom’s time on the earth was to toast her with a Tab.”
So they set off to find some, only to discover that store shelves from Boston to Chicago to Seattle had been stripped clean. They posted pleas on social media and received commiseration and suggestions on where to look, but for days, none of the tips panned out.
Then Sarah Berger Kennie, who lives in Elmhurst, Ill., got a heads-up that a Schnucks grocery store nearby might yet have a supply. She dutifully called, and the man who answered the phone checked the shelves. A single 12-pack remained.
Kennie asked him to hold it, put her 3-year-old son Carter in the car and made the hourlong drive west, half-believing the soda would be gone when she arrived. But sure enough, she walked in and found it waiting at the self-checkout line in all its pink splendor.
“It was an overwhelming feeling,” she said. “Kind of a happy/ sad-type situation.”
By Tuesday night, the soda was in the hands of her siblings, who gathered around their webcams for the toast.
“Tab’s jingle said it was for beautiful people,” Matt Berger said from his home in Seattle. “Well, they were right. You truly were a beautiful person inside and out, and we love you and miss you very, very much.”
Kennie and her husband, J.R., raised their cans and took a sip as Carter bounced around the living room. In a few minutes it was over and everyone signed off, leaving Kennie with a fizzy afterglow no caffeine can achieve.
“I know my mom would have loved that I did that for her,” she said.
‘Tab’s jingle said it was for beautiful people. Well, they were right. You truly were a beautiful person inside and out, and we love you and miss you very, very much.’ Matt Berger
Kathleen Berger’s son