©Although he still owns it my father no longer resides at the home that my siblings and I grew up in. Yes, the Pearcey’s have left Longview Drive but we have all agreed that no matter where we go, Longview Drive will forever be in our hearts. No one lives there but whenever I am in town, I’ll still drop by the old house to reminisce, smile, and remember. From room to room I move thinking about all the good times we had while growing up in that small frame box.

My favorite place to go while living there was the backyard unless of course, it was time for me to cut the grass. Pushing that lawnmower down that hilly backyard and dragging it up; man, the thought of it all makes me sweat but you know, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Yes, that backyard holds a lot of special memories. The big backyard on Longview Drive is home to a large concrete slab that my father poured and wrote the names of all of his children on. The backyard has a shed, a clothesline, trees that refuse to die and my favorite thing of all…the fence.

Yeah, that old fence holds a lot of stories. If you asked it to, it could tell you about all of those times me and my friends hopped over it to race down to the store for a comic book, a soda, a bag of chips, or ice cream. That fence could tell you about all of those nights it doubled as a shortcut after watching a high school football or basketball game. I promise you, that old fence man, that old fence could tell you everything you ever needed to know about a special time and a special place.

It could also tell you a story about a woman loving her man.

***

I remember it as clear as yesterday, what happened and how it happened. It was a sunny afternoon and I was only 5 and there stood my mother and me in the kitchen, her cleaning the house, me making a mess. Out of nowhere, a group of construction workers gathered on the other side of our fence. “Hmmm,” said my mother, before striding out to the yard to address the situation. I followed.

As it turns out the men were there to build a fence on the other side of ours but in order to do so, they would first have to attach a clamp to ours. Simple enough right?…right…but before going forward, my mother kindly told them that they would have to get her husband’s approval and he was not home. “We understand”, they said.

A little time passed and the worker who by this time I gathered was in charge came to our back door and politely asked if there was any word from my father. I remember my mother smiling and saying, “Not yet sir”.
Morning turned to afternoon and each time he asked, he was met with the same reply. Finally, he and his team stood, arms crossed outside of our back door in a show of force and informed my mother that if it was ok with her, they were about to go ahead and complete their work. Now, these were big men, who looked nothing like us at a time when looking nothing like us was considered to be all the approval they needed.

This move might have worked on some but it didn’t stand a chance against her. I remember her slowly steadying her little frame, crossing her arms, and smiling a powerful smile before softly yet sternly saying…”I’m waiting…on my man”…That’s when they got it. They didn’t come back to that back door no more; no, they got it. She was only five feet tall; much smaller than the man in charge but from that point on oh there was no doubt whatsoever about who was in control.

A short time later my father pulled up in that brand spanking new Mercedes that she bought him…with cash, I might add at which time she informed him of the day’s events. He went out, gave his approval and the men finished the job they had started. When he turned around, he was beaming. I didn’t know how to describe the look on his face as he strode up the backyard to the door so back then I just called it happy…today I know it as love.

Yeah, it was love. It was love because he had a woman who had his back…it was love; it had to be, because his woman respected his place and made sure others did the same…Love because even today over forty years after her passing the mere mention of her name makes him melt…it’s such a beautiful thing….love because no matter what she was facing he knew he had a woman who knew he was on his way…

That’s why she waited on him….

***

You want that man to melt…you want that man to glow…Do you want that man to believe he can when the world says he can’t…to find himself when he appears to be lost…

Be there when he arrives. That’s right, wait on him…

It’s such a beautiful thing…