Men in Suits
Cheryl DeLoatch

When I was growing up in rural North Carolina, one of my fondest memories was of going to church with my family, namely my grandparents. My mother would dress me in cute little dresses with ruffled socks and shiny patent leather shoes. She would brush my hair and struggle to get it together in little ponytails, make sure my face was lotioned with Jergens and off we would go with my grandparents. They would dote on me on the way to church and when we got there. I was my granddaddy’s little “Schell” and he would take me by my hand and show me off to other family members and his friends. My uncles would remark on how big I was getting, how cute I was, or how I looked like my mother or my aunt. They made me feel so special and loved. As church began, my grandfather would give me back to my mother and we would go and sit down in our pew. My grandfather, along with the other men, would take his seat in the “Amen Corner.” These men sat in the same place every Sunday as Deacons and Elders of the church. They were often the worship leaders, church trustees, or any of myriad responsible roles in the church and the community. Men in suits.
I didn’t know it at the time, but they were shaping my ideas about men. I saw them as responsible, confident, manly men. They were family men, many of whom had seen their kinfolk through trying and dangerous times. They had been victims of prejudice and crime in a South that oftentimes overlooked the significance they had on their communities. Yet in church on Sunday mornings, they carried themselves with a pride borne out of the awareness that they were the backbone of their worlds. They would reach in the pockets of those suits and bring out a pencil for keeping track of the morning offering or any other church business they’d been tasked with. They would reach in and pull out a handkerchief and wipe the sweat that often poured from their brow in a church with no air conditioning on a hot day. When I disobediently ran on the church ground and fell and skinned my knee, someone would pull out that handkerchief and give it to my mother to clean my wound. Then, they would kneel beside me on my level and tell me not to cry, it would only hurt for a little while. As I dried my tears, they would reach in those pockets and give me a peppermint candy. If I was really carrying on, I’d get a quarter. But my tears eventually stopped, my pain eventually comforted. By the men in suits.
In the end, I recognize, it wasn’t just the suits that stuck in my mind. It was the knowledge that these men were there for me. If I, or my family, needed them, they were there. If I needed a protector, I could count on them all. They would protect me, both with and without the suit. I looked up to them and saw these well dressed men the way men are supposed to be in our society. Responsible, intelligent, loyal, proud, strong and when need be, sensitive. They could be defending their opinion boisterously one moment and holding my hand as I cried the next. Men who were the heads of their families, who went out and made a living every day, who took on the business of the family. Men who made repairs around the house. Men who worked in their gardens. Men who led the family to church on Sundays, men who “amened” the preacher, men who took the young irresponsible men aside and “talked to them.” Men who doted on their daughters and trained their sons. Men who were there. Men who could not be run away no matter what the circumstances. Men in suits.