
This year was the first time our family’s traditional search for The Perfect Christmas Tree was held without her.
I lost my wife to cancer on the first day of spring.
For fifty years, The Perfect Christmas Tree my wife selected was – always – in the very farthest reaches of the acres and acres of the farm.
Fortunately, the farm we often frequented for this great adventure had a tractor (what’s a farm without a tractor?) to return The Perfect Tree hunters and their prized Perfect Christmas Tree from the farthest reaches of the acres and acres of the farm.
Unfortunately, on one of those adventures, the tractor broke down. ‘Repairmen are on the way,’ we were promised.
This Christmas Tree farm, in addition to cut-your-own Christmas trees, featured a pumpkin patch and a corn maze to get lost in.
So, I did.
I got lost.
While waiting for the rest of the extended family to select and cut their trees, I busied myself wandering through the maze of seven-foot-tall cornstalks all while carrying overhead The Perfect Christmas Tree my wife had selected.
For any of the many families like ours out there that day who happened to notice, that’s all they would have seen: the top of a tree, bobbing along, going this way and then that, as if lost, wandering in the corn maze, trying to find its way out.
Weary of this goofiness, I noticed the way-over-ripe pre-squashed pumpkins begging for attention and I obliged to create my own version of Frosty the Snowman – complete with cornstalk pipe and hair – there being no snow available.
Eventually the tractor was operational and The Perfect Christmas Tree was plunked down alongside all the other Perfect Christmas Trees, and happily we all rode the muddy trail back from the farthest reaches of the acres and acres of the farm.
But this year she wasn’t there for this traditional family outing.
And I was feeling lost until finding a couple strolling along, hand-in-hand, about ready to head out on their own great adventure to find their own Perfect Christmas Tree.
“You don’t know me,” I said, as I drew near and caught their attention.
“And I don’t know you, but I have something for you. Would you wait a moment?”
They did. They waited. What did this total stranger have that he had so abruptly offered?
Hurriedly I ran to my truck and upon returning, I held out to them an envelope, and said, “I saw you holding hands today and I wanted to thank you since it’s something my wife and I can no longer do.”
With that I turned away as tears were threatening.
Inside the envelope there is a portrait of my wife and I, also holding hands, one of the last portraits taken of us. And there is a brief note:
I saw you holding hands today,
And though a total stranger I wanted to say,
Thank you.
Thank you for reminding me,
Of how precious is touch, and time, both passing quickly.
Having lost my wife of 50 years to cancer I just wanted you to know,
That simply holding hands is one so very important way to show,
To others, to me,
How very special love should be.
Thank you.
Just a bit later I had this year’s Christmas Tree tied down in the truck when this same couple approached, took my hands in theirs and simply said “Thank you. Holding hands is what we often do.”
That was it.
And it was perfect.
Touch, smell, all one can try to remember sensually. My sweetheart is very much alive, but we lived through a far-distance courtship for two years, and our first year of marriage was non-existent save for one week because of immigration laws.
In short – we need to tend to our sensual perceptions and cherish them. Thank you for the reminder, David.