Growing up, mayonnaise was a tradition. I swear, my mom must have had sponsorship from Hellman’s because its signature yellow and blue label and matching blue lid was never not in our refrigerator. The largest size jar sat on the top shelf and was seemingly always full. Until I moved away for college, Mom made lunch for me every day to take to school. It was a disappointment at times during elementary school because I didn’t get to have the fun pizza or chicken nugget lunches like most of my friends, but through the years, I've realized all the ways I should appreciate it, even when acting like I didn’t.
Lunch was always a sandwich. The deli meat and bread varied, but the one consistent feature was the coating of mayonnaise on the inside. Even before my parents divorced when I was nine, my mom was essentially a single parent. She was there for every moment and made sure she did all she could for my younger brother and me with very little-to-no assistance. To her, making sure we had a homemade lunch was one of her top priorities and sole responsibilities. Her craft with the off-white condiment was a comforting and thoughtful art. Other than saying she loved me, that was her way of showing it.
When I got older and wanted to return the favor of all those sandwich-making miles she had clocked, I made sandwiches for her. This was met with some criticism, though, because for mom, there was never enough mayonnaise. No matter how much there was lacquered onto each slice of bread, there was no reason why a little more couldn’t be added. Why are you being stingy? It won’t taste like anything if there isn’t enough mayonnaise, she would say. The condiment had to have a luxurious thickness for her to be satisfied. The constructed sandwich was simply the apparatus to deliver the tangy, unctuous emulsion to her mouth. “Everything in moderation” was never really a followed practice in our household. My mom thought everything food-related should be enjoyed to its fullest extent. The only things to come close to her love of mayo were butter and basically all chocolate desserts. This was passed down to me. When I was little, I was never denied anything when it came to food. The pantry and fridge were stocked with real sugar and full-fat everything, although there was once a very unfortunate appearance of Snackwell’s cookies that I’ve never been able to forget. This isn't to say I got whatever I wanted either. I had to ask politely if I wanted to have sweets before dinner.
My mom died when I was 24. No, mayonnaise wasn’t the cause. She was blessed with a body type that naturally fought off gaining weight, and she wasn’t affected by the high blood pressure and cholesterol issues that ran in her family. It was a three-year feud with a rare and strange cancer. Throughout those three years, I cared for her, yet I was trying to get my young adult life together. It was the second semester of my junior year in college when she was first diagnosed, then went through an attempt of surgically removing the tumor, and then began chemotherapy. My senior year, I barely fulfilled the final requirements to graduate. Going back and forth between where Mom lived in Southern New Jersey and where my school was in the northern part of the state took about three hours of driving. I insisted on being with her most weekends and even during the week if things were particularly rough after a treatment, so homework and projects fell to the wayside. In the end, I saw a withdrawal, a couple of incompletions, and three F’s on my final transcript, most of which happened in one semester- my last semester. But after completing my senior thesis in the summer of 2009, I was done with the distraction of school and could focus on my mom. It was a relief, more than anything, to be finished. I didn’t necessarily feel the excitement and accomplishment that I should have. My accomplishments became idle actions and for good reason. I moved back home to be on-duty, full-time for her. Beginning my passage into the real world, my own world, wasn’t a priority I was interested in. Nothing else mattered except caring for the remarkable woman who unconditionally supported, encouraged, and loved me, the woman who cared enough to make my lunch every day.
Though times were tough, my mom never lost her passion for making jokes, laughing, and, most of all, food. She couldn’t eat more than a few bites at a time between a stunted appetite and chemo-induced nausea, but she made every bite count. More than ever, it became important that she baked cookies, banana bread, or a spur-of-the-moment batch of brownies from scratch when she had the energy to do it and the craving to eat what she made. Knife-full after knife-full of mayonnaise was applied to the turkey sandwiches she could stomach. But after a while, her will to get better pushed aside that primal desire. She started changing her diet after reading about natural cancer-fighting remedies. She started talking to me about whey protein and pomegranates and the power of juicing, and I checked her forehead for a fever because I had never heard such crazy talk come out her mouth. About a year and a half after her diagnosis, she talked to her oncologist about having succumbed to eating healthier and cutting back on the rich foods she adored. He told her there was no reason why she couldn’t eat whatever she wanted. From what I understood about that simple conversation with her doctor, who was a man of very few words, it wasn’t that he was saying eating nutrient-packed foods wouldn’t do any good; it was just that she should enjoy food and enjoy life as much as possible while she still could.
After that, her lust for mayonnaise was even more apparent and wild. If she had to go to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia for a scan, we either went together afterward or I went for her to pick up a corned beef special with extra-extra-extra Russian dressing from Hershel’s East Side Deli. The dressing had to be seeping from every crevice of the bread and meat. It was endearing to see this woman smile at the sight of a sloppy sandwich. At times, her insistence on more was embarrassing, though. Once we were at a diner and whatever she had ordered required her favorite condiment. She sent the waitress back multiple times to get her more of the white stuff. I pleaded with Mom that she should be more considerate since she used to be that waitress, which was the job she had through most of my childhood. I want more and why shouldn’t I get it? was all she said. As childish as her response sounded, she was right. It made her feel alive to be able to eat what she wanted and however she wanted it. Sometimes I was awe-struck with her recklessness. I wanted to be the kind of woman who attacked her life the way my mom attacked menu choices. She couldn’t control her health, but she made the most out of what she could.
In the years after my mom’s death, it was a huge leap from me being any other young woman with a mother to being a young woman who lost her mother figuring out how to navigate life without any motherly guidance. Events went from being paused to played in fast forward. I was defined by my need to be needed by her, which left me unsure how to take care of myself. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my own life now that I didn’t have her. Remembering my mom and the mayonnaise helped, though. There were plenty of moments of frustration and lack of direction, but memories about how she found power and purpose in something as simple as her love for a particular condiment came back to me. Whether I was grappling with a professional, educational, or personal obstacle, I looked back at how she gracefully persevered through her cancer by enjoying what she loved without any apology. That’s a priceless sentiment that she left me with while I’m still on my way to becoming the woman I want to be.
