Beverly Yvonne Fuller

                                                              MEMPHIS BEV

                                                       An absolutely true story.

                            Copyright: Suzanne Marcus Fletcher, Micah Project, LLC

                    Editing or republishing this material is forbidden without author’s consent

 

I met Beverly Isabel Fuller within hours of my birth.  It was a Divine appointment. My mother, also named Beverly, 30, was in the first stages of a deadly illness––clueless about motherhood––yet smart enough to ask a 16-year-old who had just arrived from Tennessee for help with her newborn. Memphis Bev was then less than 100 pounds; 1200 miles from her own mother; and doubtless questioned how she was going to manage. Staring her down were two wayward children and me, a new two-story house and a near helpless mother in the sheltered Great Neck enclave. Exactly how Bev landed in our Long Island home from her Delta origins remains a mystery.  Her time with me would be short, yet long enough to ensure I’d survive, even flourish.  

For the better part of a decade, Bev was the anchor of my days. Her Southern reserve was soon replaced with a fiery discipline and a penchant for R&B. Mealtimes and baths ran like clock-work. We were groomed within an inch of our lives––my sister and I had perfect hair-buns to prove it. Somehow, Bev would manage a surprise or two when things got truly dark. Between her domestic grind and caring for a bed-ridden child-woman, Bev pioneered the first-ever slushie while introducing us to R&B. She simply walked outside one wintry afternoon, collected freshly fallen snow, and poured a perfect measure of grape soda over ice chips while teaching us how to dance to Sam and Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming.” It was the highlight of my childhood.

As we grew, so did Bev. She forged strong opinions on everything from personal style to the importance of leaving your comfort zone. She told my sister one day that, the neighborhood twins were bullying her in our own home, and it had to stop. That was the end of it. Social experiences were key. Bev persuaded my parents to let her take me to Ringling Brothers, craft and ride fairs at St. Aloysius, and got permission for me to join her on her days of­­­­­f––when we’d visit her church friends Roxy and Vivienne and eat hamburgers.  As my father told it, we were thick as thieves.  Bev and me became the talk of the town––nearly tethered as we made our way to Jay’s music store down in Great Neck village: “You could see us a mile away,” she’d say, laughing through tears, “We’d come by and folks were actually yelling, ‘Here come Beverly and Susie.” She’d laugh again and shake her head as if it were a foreign dream.

And just as quickly as Bev had entered our lives, she was gone. The season for starting her own family upon meeting her soulmate, James Fuller, had begun. She would give birth to her beloved son, Shomari, and became a brilliant grandmother to Shomari’s son, Jayden,––all of whom became the very core of her life.

It wasn’t until I became an adult that I fully realized that, Memphis Bev, was my childhood. If she hadn’t shown up when she did, I would not have survived the events that came later.  She planted a foundation of fortitude, singular thinking and humor that has served me my entire life.  Thank you.  I will always love you dearly, Beverly. --Sue