thoughts of the one who kept us together

shared by Paul “Alabama” Tran, her close family friend

ORIGINS OF SNOOPY

I met Cyn a few days after she turned sixteen. I’d driven up to the Bay Area to hang out with her sisters and they took me to one of her high school basketball games. I remember that she was a good player and had a nice handle. I even remember her driving in for a layup and cheering for her along with her family. After the game, I was introduced to her.

“This is Bama,” Marlo said,

using my nickname from UCLA UniCamp.

I expected her to think it was a weird name,

but she simply smiled and said,

“Hi, Bama.”

I saw Cyn a few more times on that trip. She was usually tired and sleepy in that do-everything Cyn way. One morning, I looked at her--perhaps it was her fair skin or her chill demeanor--and said, “You look like Snoopy.” She smiled and in her cool nonchalant way said, “Okay.”

Two years later, Cyn started at UCLA. One day in the spring, I saw Cyn on Bruin Walk. She told me that like her sisters, Marlo and Carla, she had joined UniCamp, too.

“What’s your camp name?” I asked her.

I beamed a huge Kool-Aid Man smile, flattered

she’d remembered, let alone chosen the name.

“Snoopy,” she answered.  

LATE-NIGHT SLUMBER PARTY

During Cyn’s fifth year at UCLA, I had moved back to Los Angeles from the Bay Area. I hadn’t seen Cyn much since her freshman year and when I saw her again, she was no longer the shy freshman trying to make friends or get to know the campus. She was, as I liked to tease her, “grown.” She was wicked smart, thinking about graduate school at Harvard, and ready to leave UCLA. She had even applied to teach English in Japan.  

Because I was wrapping up my thesis and working near campus, I saw Cyn often. As I had grown close to Marlo and Carla before, I told her this was our “buddy time.” She was living with Marlo and Andrew at the time, over in Culver City. When I had to work consecutive nights in LA, rather than driving back to Long Beach, I would some times crash at their place.

The night before Cyn’s accident, Cyn and I stayed up late talking.  She was a great listener and whenever I said something she thought clever, she would encourage me by saying, “You should write that down” or “Did you think of that?” It wasn’t the first time we’d had thoughtful conversations. (We often talked politics, philosophy, the upcoming war). But the topic this time was eerily fitting: We talked about family, love, the future.

She told me about how different each one of her sisters was and how she had a unique way with each of them. She said she “understood” each sister on their own terms and could help them clear up miscommunications. Arlene is like this, she said, and Marlo is more like that. With Carla, you have to talk to her this way, but with VJ you have to talk to her that way. “So you’re like the hub of the Rabuy sisters?” I asked. “Yeah, something like that,” she said. Though she was being modest, I could tell she was proud of each special bond that she shared with Arlene, Marlo, Carla, and VJ.  

I also remember talking to her about relationships and our future dreams: We’d both wanted to impact people, the world positively. Though I was four years older, I never felt the difference in age. She had a calming presence and was wise beyond her years. She had what some people refer to as “an old soul.” I gave Cyn advice on work and graduate school. She would smile at my crazy dreams and say in her completely inspiring and giving and sincere manner “Yeah, of course, you can do it” or “Sure, why not?” The rest of the night, through conversations both serious and silly, we stayed up late, in our pajamas giggling like “school girls at a slumber party,” Marlo would later say.  

The next morning, I woke early to go to work. I passed through Cyn’s bedroom to use her bathroom. She was still sleeping, so I tried to be quiet. But as I walked back to the living room, she woke up. At the time, it was quite unlike her, to wake up so early. But now looking back, maybe it all makes some kind of sense. Her black hair covering half her face, she rubbed her eyes and sat half way up.

“Bye, Bama,” she said.

I remember, vividly, reaching out and

grabbing her hand and thinking,

What a beautiful kid.

“Bye, Snoopy,” I said. “See you later.”

She let go of my hand and went back to sleep.