thoughts of being crafty with clay

shared by Arlene Rabuy, her sister

Cyn always had a natural talent at anything crafty. I remember when she made a clay sculpture of Marlo in her orange senior ball dress. Usual things for people to create with clay would be a snake or a ball, but not Cyn, she chose to create her sister. It, of course, was very accurate.

thoughts of one-four-three

shared by Cathy Serafica de Leon, her close family friend

One of my fondest memories of Cindy, Carla, & Marlo is of dancing with all three of them at my wedding -- all at the same time! What a lucky girl I was. :) That day, in January 2003 just 3 months before Cindy passed, was one of the most blissful of my life, made more so by the joy of partying the night away with the Rabuys. Cindy and her sisters were some of the last to leave that night and I have such vivid memories of her and the last handful of folks at the reception just dancing all silly and crazy in a circle on the dance floor, shoes off, doing some kind of 80s dance moves. Such fun.

thoughts of the power of discovering old words

shared by Paul "Alabama" Tran, her close family friend

A few months before Cyn would have graduated, she was in the middle of finals and called me. She had a final exam that required them to write an in-class essay on a laptop computer. The only problem was that she didn't have one. So we made arrangements for me to drop mine off to her at UCLA. The only thing was that my laptop was really, really old and I was worried it would crash or not work for her and I told her so. But as she always does, in her Cyn way, she nonchalantly took my laptop and went to take her exam.

When I saw her a few days later, all had gone well. Months and months after Cyn had passed, I discovered the exam on my computer. I'm sure I saved it somewhere before I sold the laptop. Now after writing this, I want to go find it and see what she wrote. I'll write back when I find it. I think it's very powerful to hold someone's old words, and know I'll feel some of her presence when I do.