One afternoon, when my husband and I were still in the early days of our marriage, my husband announced, ” I think you should stop eating sugar and white flour.”
I immediately cringed.
“What? No way! Why?”
“Because you have diabetes in your family and I don’t want you to die.”
That was easy for him to say. I realized though, that he was dead serious.
In a state of extreme panic I exclaimed. “Well, I don’t think I am capable of doing that. I mean, there is just no way!”
“What if I did it too? Do you think you could do it then?”
And thus began a five year journey.
The first two weeks we were like drug addicts going through withdrawals. I thought we might actually do irreparable damage to our marriage.
But we survived. And within a month not only had the cravings for sugar diminished to almost nothing, but we had lost a bunch of weight.
The years went by and we felt pretty good physically. I was never tempted by sugar and if I would accidentally lick my fingers after making some concoction for other people, I would literally get a stomachache within seconds.
I had a dream one night that my husband crept downstairs and began eating chocolate chip cookie bars. In my dream, I caught him in the act and immediately dived in too, eating the entire pan.
I knew that if he ever fell off the wagon, I wouldn’t be far behind.
After 5 years of being sugar free, my husband went to work on a project with my father-in-law that had the two of them out of town for weeks at a time. Sure enough hubby finally caved into temptation one night. The lure of ice cream was just too much for him.
Yet I remained constant.
Then 6 months later the phone rang. My beloved father was dead unexpectedly at the age of 58.
During the two weeks we were gathered together in my mom’s home I was in awe of all the kindness people bestowed on our family.
Most of it came in the form of food. And much of that food was in the form of dessert.
Despite the emotional nightmare, I was strong. As the rest of my family buried their sorrows in their brownies and cookies, I refrained.
One day I blurted out to them, “Why don’t you guys just go to a bar!” -which of course was ridiculous because we are Mormons.
But the way they were using food to comfort themselves was getting to me. Apparently, because I was weakening.
One day I came in to find a man visiting at the house. He was the same build as my father and when I first walked through the door, I thought he was my Dad and I went running to him, only to make a quick and embarrassed detour into the kitchen when I realized my mistake.
I sobbed and shook , as I came face to face with my grief.
After a while, alone in the kitchen, I turned to the fridge.
There in plain sight was a homemade chocolate mint cake.
I love chocolate mint.
When my sister caught me stuffing my face with all that chocolaty goodness, my words came back to taunt me, “Gee Jen, why don’t you just go to a bar!”
Instead, I just kept eating sugar.
Jessica
