Marika Vidákovics Cser

Author Unknown

Marika Vidákovics Cser of Yorba Linda, CA passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by her family on Friday May 26, 2023 at the age of 86.

Marika was born on July 7, 1936, in Baja, Hungary. She was the youngest of 13 children born to Vidákovics Mátyás and Erzsébet (Taba). Marika and her siblings were hard working and resourceful. They grew crops and had livestock for their sustenance and preserved everything they could in every way imaginable. My mom had such fond memories of getting up early to milk the cows and riding her bike in the snow with milk jugs full of fresh milk to sell at the market. They sold everything they didn’t eat; eggs, jams, preserves, fruits, vegetables… She loved carrying their goods to the market to sell.

Two great losses in Marika’s early life occurred when she was just 6 and 8 years old. When Marika was 6 years old, her 14 year old sister died of Diphtheria within ten days of thinking that she had a common cold. Just two years later, she lost her beloved mother who had been suffering from congestive heart failure for most of Marika’s young life. There is no doubt that she is having a wonderful and long-awaited reunion in heaven with them now, as well as all those that she loved who have passed on before her.

Marika dedicated her life to Jesus at an early age and married the boy she always hoped to marry, Cser Lászlo on March 3rd, 1957.

After living in Dusnok for a bit they decided to move back to Baja where Marika had a piece of land and they built their first home. They were quite the talk of the town when people heard that they were putting an indoor toilet into the house and not building an outhouse on the property. Who in their right mind would put something so filthy inside their house? And so close to the kitchen of all things! Marika and Laci were a little ahead of their time. They absolutely loved entertaining, and their home was always full of guests, great food and lots of singing and laughter. Marika even invited her next-door neighbor to help herself to her garden, giving her an access gate with the instructions to pick anything she needed, anytime she needed it.

While still in Hungary, Marika and Laszlo had 5 children, Laszlo, Zoltán, Tibor, Marika, and Arnold. In 1969, only telling Laszlo’s older brother Lajos of their plan to escape Hungary through then Yugoslávia, they left everything they owned and all the people they loved and made a brave and daring escape from communism into Trieste in Northern Italy. After 4 months in refugee camps throughout Italy, Marika and her family flew to Southern California where they started their new life.

Less than a year later, their 16-year-old nephew Steve Cser followed in their footsteps and escaped as well, joining their family by their first Thanksgiving in America, giving mom one more son to love and feed with her big heart and incredible cooking.

In 1976, the Cser family moved from Long Beach to Desert Hot Springs and opened a Hungarian restaurant. Marika was the heart and soul of Cser’s Budapest Restaurant. She cooked and baked all day, and then, put her waitress uniform on and served late into the night. She made everything from scratch, sometimes staying up all night to replenish, when everything ran out on a busy night or weekend. No one could sell as many of Marika’s homemade desserts as she could because she had a secret weapon. She would ask, “You not going to trrrryd my strrrudel?” No one dared to say no to her. Everyone loved Marika and her cooking.

1980 brought a special and unexpected surprise when Marika found herself pregnant with Jason at the age of 44, adding yet another son to the count. 1980 also blessed Marika and the family’s life when her niece Elizabeth Zimmer came out from Hungary for a visit and decided to stay which finally added another daughter to the count as well.

Everyone that knew Marika knew her as a loving, caring, hardworking, dedicated, gracious, patient and beautiful human being. She had a deep and abiding love for God’s incredible creation, that captivated her attention and awe to the very end of her life. I can’t think of a single plant that she didn’t know the name of. She also knew how to coax and nurture every plant to its full potential. It was as if every plant wanted to please her, and they did. And animals? Oh my goodness did she love animals, and they sure loved her back.

We are so thankful for the long-life God granted her … Her love will live on in the lives of all those that she touched and we trust that she is where she had her sights set… safely sheltered in the arms of Jesus…

The quietness… the stillness and emptiness and void that is left here with us in the physical day to day realm is unsettling … it hurts like a hurt I only came close to knowing when my dad passed.

The comfort comes thorough the gifts God gave us in her and through her life, and even how he allowed her to pass from this life into the next; being able to be home with us and surrounded in love… communicating and responding to us all until the very end, both with those of us who were present with her, as well as her children grandchildren, and great-grandchildren through FaceTime. Oh, how much love we all experienced. It was a beautiful time… She was even blowing kisses to grandkids through facetime in the last couple of hours she was with us.

Truths from God’s word that she lived and hoped in … that she clung to … were the very words and truths that quieted and steadied her, as she labored to exit this physical realm… and as she passed through the valley of the shadow of death… into new life…

How great Thou art … This world is not my home, Lead me gently home Father, It is well with my soul, What a day that will be, Jesus loves me this I know… Blessed assurance… these were the songs on her lips and the melodies in her heart as she breathed her last, and ended with a gentle sigh…

Marika was preceded in death by her parents and siblings, Husband Lászlo and son Tibor and is survived by her 6 Children László, Zoltán, Marika (Dan) Marton, Arnold (Bernadett), Jason (Kristie) , 18 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren, and two more great-grandchildren expected in October and December.

As Arnold and I sat there next to our mom’s motionless body a song was texted to me and as we listened, our focus shifted from the seeming awfulness of this present moment, to the reality of not our loss here, but her gain there…

Safe in the arms of Jesus