Pearl Foster isn’t her real name. Or rather, wasn’t. Cause I’m pretty sure she died. She was a very old lady, and Pearl Foster is the kind of name someone of her age and culture could have had if she wasn’t named her actual name, which I’m not going to reveal here.

We used to walk past Pearl’s house every day when the girls were at school. It was on our street, between home and school. Curiously, I never saw her at other times when I walked or drove by. She seemed to come out, coincidentally or on purpose, just as the bell went and there would be a small procession of children and parents walking past her house. She would stand at her fence, as though she was collecting her mail, though she wasn’t. I remember her, thin and upright, her hair a white cloud of fairy floss around her face, smiling as we walked past her house.

The house. It was a gorgeous old weatherboard Victorian, with a veranda trimmed with iron lace. The house was painted white, and the garden was immaculate. The house, too, was neat as a pin, even if a little tired. You could tell it had been meticulously maintained over the years, rather than renovated.

People told me things about Pearl. My neighbour’s mother had lived in the house next door when she was growing up, and Pearl was at that time living there with her parents. Her father had built the house back at the turn of the 20th century. Pearl had a fiance she didn’t end up marrying. I can’t remember if he died, or if she was jilted, as they used to say in those days. There aren’t many stories told of women leaving men behind back then, even though I’m sure it happened enough. And so Pearl stayed living with her parents and when they died, she stayed on in the house. Imagine that. Living your entire live in one house, on one street, in the same suburb of the same city for your whole life. Wow.

Apparently, Pearl worked full time until she was in her sixties, contributing to the community and living a full life. You could tell that about her when we walked past. We never said much except to comment on the weather, but the one thing I remember about her was the way her face fell easily into a smile. She had laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. Those lines told the story of a kind heart and a life lived in happiness, or of satisfaction. At the very least, they told of a positive outlook.

After some time, the house became empty. I can’t remember exactly when this happened. And then it was auctioned for a princely sum, as houses are around here. A retired couple moved in after doing extensive renovations. But what made me glad was that the house stayed essentially unchanged. There was no upstairs extension added, and the new residents retained Pearl’s signature colour scheme: white on white.

Every time I walk by, I think of Pearl, and of her kind face and the sweet words she let fall my children’s way like petals in the breeze. And, however fleetingly, I am grateful that I and my children knew her.