Submitted by Terri Davis
MY PHOEBE IS LISA ANN JAMES MCNELLY...I remember as if it were just yesterday. I was about 27 years old, a mother of three young children and had been in a relationship with this guy for about three years at the time. He had asked for my hand in marriage and asked me to relocate from my home in Long Beach, California to be with him in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was offered a new job. Even though I really didn’t feel that we were the perfect match and was a little reluctant about moving, I decided to pack up my belongings and children and move to Atlanta to take on this new adventure. This new adventure would soon turn into an almost nightmare. I say almost, because God sent my Phoebe…
I left my children with my mother for the summer and packed up my belongings and headed to Atlanta to be with my fiancé and my children were due to join me and him after their summer vacation. However, after three short days, my fiancé threw me out into the streets. What did I do to deserve such harsh punishment?
I did absolutely nothing! He, however, was disgusted with the way I looked. I remember the look on his face as I lay in the bed. As I rolled over to see who was standing over me, he quickly shut the light off so that I could not see his reaction to my fat body. He threw me and my belongings out on his front lawn where all the neighbors could capture a view. I was distraught! I did not have any family in Atlanta and this day was the beginning of faith for me and one I will never ever forget.
Embarrassed, distraught, lonely and lost, I called a young lady that I barely knew and only had a brief encounter with her in high school at the Long Beach Base Club rival games with Poly and Millikan High. Her name was Lisa Ann James McNelly. Lisa picked up the other end of the phone only to hear me crying and expressing my lengthy story to her about how I had been thrown out and my clothes were blowing in the wind on the sidewalk. She asked for my location and told me that she would be right there. What I thought would take a lifetime, took her but a few moments to arrive. She was ready to cut and chop the man who I thought would be my husband. I asked her to please help me collect my things and get me out of there, if she didn’t mind. She calmed down, and we drove off to the two-bedroom townhome that she shared with her husband and two daughters, Shandrice, and Jalisa.
It was a very rainy season in Atlanta in the year of 1995, and Lisa suggested fixing up her basement for me and my three children and, I need to mention, she allowed my baby sister to tag along as well. My sister Latoria had won a scholarship to Clarke Atlanta University and wanted to live with me so that she could go to school. My three children, my sister and I had settled into our temporary living quarters. I picked up a part-time job in Marietta and had very little to give Lisa. However, she never asked me for a dime and would give me money to make it to work and would take the children out from time to time. When I needed to get to church, she would allow me to borrow her car. She was the angel I needed to make it through the toughest moment of my life.
Because Lisa was there to help me, I was able to get on my feet and would eventually save enough money to rent my own home in Decatur, Georgia. Lisa and I became the best of friends through this. She would come by my home so our children could play, and we would sit and chat for hours. We would also take rides to Fitzgerald, Georgia on the weekends to visit her relatives.
Lisa’s life was cut short a few years ago by a teenage drunk driver. When her daughter called me with the news, I screamed so loud the whole block could hear me. Her daughter told me it seemed strange because, in the week before her passing, Lisa spent time with the ladies she really loved, and I was one of those ladies. I told her I would come back to visit with her the following weekend; however, that weekend did not come. I had the opportunity to sing at her home-going service, and I still cannot believe my friend is gone. Every now and then I think about her and the love she showed me, my children and sister. Because of her, my life turned around. Today, my children are all college grads and have their own children. I have written one book and have more to come, and I’m also in my senior year of college at 52 years of age and still singing to the glory of God.
Lisa Ann James McNelly was my Phoebe. She was the right person, in the right place at the right time. Thank you for being my friend, my sister, my joy; I will see you again one day; live on my sweet, live on.
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