Thursday, October 1, 2026
After suffering a heart attack on June 22, Norma Kritzer, 82, was sent to Winthrop University Hospital where she told her daughter Michelle Schwartz, of Merrick, that she felt bogged down by depression. However, just a week after confessing suicidal ideations, Schwartz said, Kritzer was visited by a member of the community who was able to elevate her mood.
Schwartz planned on painting her mother’s nails during a July 22 visit. “If you feel good about yourself, you will get better,” she said, referring to her outlook on the emotional toll the heart attack had taken on her mother.
Schwartz was getting a pedicure at Plaza Nail in Merrick when she told her plans to its owner Chun Mi Lee, known by her customers as Lauren. It was a typically busy day for the nail salon, Schwartz said, but Lee insisted on giving Kritzer a manicure.
Lee traveled with Schwartz to Belair Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Bellmore, where Kritzer is now in recovery. The two entered the room to see the elderly woman, wheelchair-bound and hooked up to an oxygen tank. Then Lee got to work and Schwartz said that she could notice a shift in her mother’s mood.
“Last week she was telling me it doesn’t pay to live,” Schwartz told the Herald on July 25. “Today, she said to me, ‘Everyone’s commenting on my nails!’ ”
Lee visited Kritzer again last Saturday to give her a pedicure.
