Remember this fun novel? I wrote it over ten years ago. It’s the story of six women from all over the country, who met in a Beanie Baby AOL chat room way back in the mid 1990s. All mothers, they bonded over small plush toys and shared their trials and tribulations. They watched their children grow from toddlers to teenagers. Some have met in Real Life, while others have not. One of them invites a single parent who has lost their spouse in the Iraq war, one who appears to have secrets…and then the intrigue begins.
It was a wacky story line, but I loved the characters and I especially loved the premise. This would be considered a tame story now, but back then no one had a cell phone. Facebook was just for college students, and Twitter was nothing. There was no zoom or Face Time, as the internet was just a baby. It was relatively easy to shield yourself from prying eyes online. I remember trying to pitch this novel at the San Francisco Writers Conference and getting the skeptical expressions of nearly every agent I spoke to. Something about “oh, too weird for us” or “it doesn’t have a genre” – I called it “mom-lit” or chick-lit for aging women. Eventually I self-published as an ebook. (There’s a sequel but it’s now so dated I’m not sure I’m ever going to publish it.)
I based my “virtual moms” on a real life internet group which I belonged to, the Beanie Moms. I’ve met all but two of the ladies in my group. Don’t ask who’s who in the book, I took a little personality from each of the women I know. (It’s 25 years later and we still refer to ourselves as Beanie Moms, even though our kids are in their 30s now, and me? I gave all my Beanie Babies away when I moved to Colorado two years ago.) We’re still close. Unbelievably.
Just as unbelievably, one of us (of the Real Beanie Moms) passed away recently.
It was rather jarring, as you can imagine. We had just had a group chat on Mothers Day. She was still young! Younger than I am. She died the Friday after Mothers Day. It was an accident, a freakish one where she fell, hit her head the right (or wrong) way, and that was it.
It took a while for me to recover. I was rendered speechless for quite a while. And then I thought, “wow,” and of course, I went through a period of thinking holy shit, life is short, what am I dinking around for.
I couldn’t write. I could barely function.
Even now, six weeks later, it’s still unbelievable.
I never met Cyn in Real Life, although we got close a few times. My son had an audition for school in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute back in 2004. She lived not far away in New Jersey. But we had another audition to make, and my car was acting weird so we headed to Boston right away. Then last year, she was in Denver visiting another Beanie Mom. I was going to come up to meet her, but unfortunately I was running in the Race to the Shrine that morning and that afternoon she had plans. We were only separated by an hour and a half of geography.
What I remember most about her was that she was always positive and energetic. She would post these hand made memes on her Instagram (she had a board!) that were catchy and smart. She loved her husband, her daughter, and her dog. She had so many friends! Which was no wonder, since her personality was so uplifting.
But she had fears too. She was afraid of the CoVid19 virus and didn’t go to many places. She masked up when she did. She was super careful. She told me she had things she still wanted to do; she wanted to travel, she wanted to see her daughter married, she wanted to play with her grandkids. I’m afraid I’m a bit more rambunctious. (I’ve been a government disbeliever since Nixon, and hey, I live in Colorado where the fresh air and sunshine has definitely been a positive influence on my health.) So we had a bit of a disagreement over our opinions, but nothing that would break a bond.
I’m going to miss Cyn. You need a super positive influence in such a negative world. I’m sorry she won’t make it to her daughter’s wedding, but she’ll be looking on from heaven.
Rest in peace, Cyn, you deserve heaven.
