How I married for mustard, and what it means in life with Parkinson’s
A missing turkey sloppy joe ingredient was the sign this columnist was waiting for
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I have spoken previously about how lucky I am to have such a strong support network, including my wonderful husband. No one signs up for a devastating health journey when they say “I do” and promise to love through sickness and health. But you come to learn the true meaning of love when those challenges do come your way.
Our 20th wedding anniversary is this month, and when I think back on how we got here, and all we’ve faced along the way, I think about how I knew my husband was the right one for me. I obviously didn’t meet him and think, “Here’s a guy who will work with me as we face the fight against an invisible monster called Parkinson’s disease.” But looking back, there were clues he was that guy.
When we first started dating, we lived a good hour’s drive apart. I was traveling a ton for work, and he was working on a master’s degree. His master’s program was designed for working people. It consisted of an intense two-year program of all-day classes every other Friday and Saturday, plus papers, homework, and group projects.
It was hard to make time for each other, but we figured it out. One good thing was that my house was much closer to his university than where he lived then. So we fell into a pattern: He would beat the rush-hour traffic to come to my house Friday after class; I’d make dinner while he did his homework, and he had a shorter drive Saturday morning. At the time, one of his favorite things I made was a turkey sloppy joe recipe that I’d gotten from my aunt, and one of the ingredients was yellow mustard.
I hated mustard.
When I was about 6 years old, my parents and I went to a famous deli, and I wanted braunschweiger, aka smoked liverwurst, on pumpernickel bread. (Can you tell I was heavily influenced by my German grandmother?) The sandwiches were huge, and no one wanted to share mine — for obvious reasons — so my parents warned me that I’d better be prepared to eat it all. I swore I would, and soon found myself facing down my own personal Mount Everest of sandwiches. I took a big first bite just to show my parents I really wanted it, and within seconds I was in tears.
What no one noticed was that the sandwich came with a huge smear of hot, spicy mustard. It was vicious and vile, and I cried in both pain and fear that my parents would make me eat the whole thing! Of course, they relented when they saw what had happened, and tried to make it better by slicing off the parts the mustard had touched, but it didn’t really work. From that moment on, I hated all kinds of mustard.
By the time I reached my 20s, I could tolerate mustard as an ingredient in some dishes, including my aunt’s turkey sloppy joes. But I really only kept mustard in the house for that recipe. One Friday night, I had just enough mustard left for the recipe and threw out the bottle. The next weekend, when my now-husband came over, he had bought me a new bottle of mustard. That’s when I knew he was a man I could be with long term. He paid attention, knew I was out of mustard, and knew it wasn’t something I was likely to remember to buy, so he brought it to me.
It may seem silly to say I married for mustard. And it wasn’t really about the mustard. But to me, it showed that he was a man who was a caretaker. He noticed things and didn’t have to be told to be thoughtful. He just was. And he was the kind of man who would never stop caring that I had what I needed.
Over the years, we have faced far more serious battles, but we had no idea they were coming. I just knew that a guy who remembered the mustard was the guy I wanted to face the future with. We’ve been married 20 years — seven of those before I was diagnosed, and 13 since. I’ve lived almost half of our marriage “sick,” which feels crazy to say. It’s not perfect — we get on each other’s nerves and have our petty moments. But I am so glad, all these years later, that I married for mustard.
Note: Parkinson’s News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Parkinson’s News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to Parkinson’s disease.
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