To Ellen's Family and Friends.
I've known the Treem Family for 38 years. Toby and I met in 6th grade at Wilde Lake Middle School in Columbia. We had almost every single class together for the next 7 years until we graduated high school. We even belonged to some of the same clubs in school and hung out with the same groups of friends. Coincidentally, Issac met my younger brother when they were in elementary school. They ended up playing on the same Wilde Lake neighborhood soccer team as kids. And I got to know Jeffrey a bit, somewhere along the way. The Treems have been part of my life growing up in Columbia almost since my family moved there in 1985.
But it wasn't until I went to work at Just Gardens with Toby and a handful of our other childhood friends, that I began to gain perspective on what made the Treem Family so special. In a word: Ellen.
We were college kids, home for the summer. At Just Gardens we worked hard, often in the hot sun, but enjoyed every minute of it. Ellen would treat us to lunch at Subway, or Amore, or some other place that would rejuvenate us just enough to finish the day. We rode around in an old, two-toned brown and beige Chevy Suburban with manual windows and bench seats. In the mornings, we would load the Suburban up with bags of mulch, potted plants, and our tools and set out to conquer the weeds and crabgrass. We would argue over who got to use the motorized tiller. We would compete to see who could carry the most bags of mulch at a time. We would race to see who could mulch a flower bed the fastest. We were knucklehead college boys (with the exception of Toby) with big egos who liked to have fun and goof-off, but understood the value of hard work. We went home exhausted at the end of every day, but showed up excited and ready to work the next day, because of Ellen.
The underlying constant in these, some of my best college summer memories, is Ellen Treem. Ellen always treated us fairly and kindly. She helped us become young adults by respecting our opinions, asking our input, and sometimes correcting us when necessary, but importantly with no judgement. She was equal parts boss, mom, and confidant.
And then there was her laugh. Ellen had a boisterous, hardy, almost rowdy laugh. It was more of a cackle, really. It started in her eyes which would just light up (especially when we would do something goofy) and would eventually take over her whole body. It was the kind of laugh that made you laugh uncontrollably as well. There were times when we all forgot why we were laughing, but kept on laughing anyway, because our collective laughter itself was funny.
I miss that laugh.
I haven't seen Ellen in many years. As often happens: time, distance, and ever-increasing family commitments take over. But I wish I had made the time.
Being a Just Gardens employee made me a full-time landscaper during my summers in college. But funny enough, today, I hate cutting my own grass; mostly because it takes so long. But oftentimes, when I'm out in the yard on a long, hot day, I start thinking about how I need to do a better job mulching, or weeding, or edging. Or that I should really plant some annuals, not just perennials this year. Or that I should lay out the beds in the backyard better. And invariably, my mind drifts back to my time at Just Gardens, and I swear that I can sometimes hear Ellen's wild, infectious cackle of a laugh, floating in a passing breeze.
Ellen Treem made a lasting impression on me.
Toby, Isaac, and Jeffrey: you were blessed to have such a wonderful woman to call "mom". She was a mom to me too. I will grieve her loss with you.
-Kwesi Robotham
