Meetings and departings

I met my husband, Lee, at Thomley’s Christmas tree farm in December 1983.  He was my sister’s (the middle child), neighbor, and she had been scheming to introduce us for months.  Lee worked at the tree farm, so she used the excuse of picking out a Christmas tree to finally make it happen.

I can remember exactly what I was wearing that day.  It was a blue button-down oxford shirt and denim overalls.  Earlier that day at school I was bored and I had made a long chain out of colored plastic paper clips and hung it around my neck. Yes, I was a little nerdy, which is probably why my sister took it into her own hands to find me a boyfriend.

When we got to the farm my sister and I walked through the acres of evergreens until we picked out the perfect one, and then we found Lee and asked him to go cut it for us.  We piled in the cab of the farm’s resident 1952 blue Chevrolet truck and headed out to get the tree.  My sister positioned me to sit in the middle, next to Lee.  Me, being the way I was, tried to make myself as small as possible so our bodies would not touch.  How embarrassing that would have been for me to touch a boy I did not even know.

Lee pulled up to the tree, and we all got out of the truck and he cut it for us.  He and my sister chatted about school and his girlfriend and he paid me no attention whatsoever.  Except, that is, to ask me why in the world I was wearing paper clips around my neck.  I’m sure I turned every shade of red and tried to make myself even smaller for the ride back to the shop to pay for the tree.  He swears he does not remember that day.  Oh, did you catch the part about the girlfriend?  My sister must have been really desperate for me.

I was not to see Lee again for five months during which time I assume he and his girlfriend parted ways.  That was when my sister and her co-worker, who just happened to be his mother, conspired to set us up on a blind date (read: forced him).  Our relationship for the next few years had high points, low points and sometimes no points.  

Three years later when we were both students at USM he convinced me to take the same chemistry class he was taking.  That fall we spent the majority of every Tuesday and Thursday morning in class and the next off period talking and building a friendship.  When Christmas rolled around he asked me to come out and visit him at the tree farm where he was working again.  

I drove up to the shop at the farm and Mr. Thomley, the owner, came out to meet me.  This made me terribly uncomfortable.  I did not do well with strangers, especially older ones.  I was afraid I might get Lee in trouble for visiting him at work, so it was with much trepidation I told Mr. Thomley I was there to see Lee.  He smiled, and with a twinkle in his eye he told me Lee was inside eating, but to wait right there, don’t go anywhere, and went in to get him.  He seemed very determined and amused, like he had a secret. 

Mr. Thomley and Lee maintained a friendship for all the years I have known my husband.  Sadly, the twinkle of that determined and amused man faded yesterday after a lengthy illness.  He will be laid to rest in a few days, and though he hasn’t said it I know my husband feels the harsh sting of losing a good friend.  

Mr. Thomley’s Santa Forest has been a part of Christmas traditions to hundreds of people, and that will be his legacy.  But I will always think of him as the amused man with a secret who wanted me to wait for my destiny.  As for me, his farm will remain in my heart as the place I wore paperclips around my neck and met my husband, even if my husband has blocked that nerdy girl from his memory.