October 10, 2005 was a cloudy, rainy day. Why do I remember that? Because it was the day that my dear friend Marybeth lost her long battle against breast cancer. Marybeth was 42 years old, a wife and a mother of three young children. And so much more.
Over the years, I have had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people online, whom I am happy to consider cyber-friends. Once in a while, I even get to meet these people. I never met Marybeth in person. We tried to get together a couple of times, but her condition cancelled us out at the last minute. It made no difference; I still loved her.
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My first venture into the world of online politics was through the About.com US Politics forum. I don't remember exactly when that was, but I know it was before GW Bush's "victory" in the 2000 election (I remember posting there that GW "stole the election fair and square".) At the time, the moderator was a gentleman some of you may have heard of, John Aravosis. It could be a contentious place, but not toxic.
That started to change after Bush was elected, and the venom increased ten-fold after September 11, 2001. And I'm not talking Bernie/Hillary venom; this was a much uglier beast. Aravosis had moved on, and the moderator really could not control the forum. I was getting ready to leave, when I got a note from Marybeth, whom I did not know then, but who was also a participant at the US Politics forum. She invited me to a Delphi forum she had entitled The Front Stoop. The idea behind the name was that we were like a bunch of neighbors and friends sitting on a stoop. We might disagree, indeed, we might fight. But in the end, we sat on the stoop together as friends.
The Front Stoop was invitation-only. The politics of the members ranged all along the spectrum. What we had in common was the ability to debate, even highly contested topics, without rancor. Marybeth enforced that principle vigorously, regardless of political leanings (she was a strong progressive). As a result, we ended up getting more intimate, in a positive manner. Since we could trust each other, we started to open up about our personal lives.
I was not one of the first members of the forum, and I had not been friendly with MB prior to joining. I felt, just a little, like a younger brother, just outside the inner circle. That all changed in August of 2003. My wife and I had flown out to California to help my family celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Now, my wife had told me, at first, that she didn't want to go. I was incredulous; 50th wedding anniversary celebrations are not an optional event. Nevertheless, I told her that I would let her decide, definitively, whether to go or not. But I told her that, if she did decide to go, she had an obligation to be positive while we were there. I said that, if that was not possible, I preferred she not go at all. My wife decided to join me, with our young son, in California.
The day of the celebration rolled around. It was a glorious day, filled with joy and nostalgia. There must have been close to a hundred people there. One of my mom's best friends, who went to San Quentin to deliver Christian-based counseling, was surprised to discover, the next time she went, that the inmates had heard about the party.
The day after the party, my wife informed me that she wanted to go back to Philadelphia. Immediately. Notwithstanding that our arrangements were to stay in the Bay Area for another week. I was stunned. I managed to hold it together long enough to get her ticket changed, and to see her off at the airport the next day. I knew that our marriage was over. It was a crushing blow.
Having nowhere else to go with this monster, I posted on The Front Stoop about what had happened. And Marybeth responded immediately, with love and anger. She made sure that I knew that I was not alone with this, and she manifested an anger at the situation that I was too numb to feel at that moment. She carried me for weeks, until I started to come around.
By the time my wife left the following March, I was, if not back to normal, capable of living a mostly unencumbered life. I owe a lot of that to Marybeth. Here she was, walking through the frightening spectre of cancer, having also had problems in her marriage. She never allowed me to feel alone. That was the kind of person MB was. I found out, towards the end, how many women she had helped on the largest breast cancer forum on Delphi.
Marybeth had won some tough skirmishes with her breast cancer. But in the middle of 2005, the enemy attacked her with fierce vigor. As the months moved along, it became increasingly clear that Marybeth was not winning this time. And that was when The Front Stoop came through for her. I won't detail everything that happened. But one event struck me hard. There was a member, Bill. He was, in the immortal words of Jonathan Winters, "a little to the right of Louis XIV". As we all tiptoed around, Bill came in with guns blazing, with a savage and loving humor which buoyed Marybeth in her hours of dire need.
In the end, on October 10, 2005, surrounded by her children and husband, Marybeth left this plane. It was a terrible blow for them, but also for those of us orphaned at the Front Stoop. I remember, after I heard the news, stumbling around my neighborhood, ultimately ending up slumped on a bench is a Revolutionary War-era cemetary, my tears mimicking the rain falling down on me. Now, even ten years later, I still feel the pain of her passing.
I am not alone. When I posted, on Saturday, on Facebook, a half-dozen former members of The Front Stoop commented in response. We still stay in touch. Even those of us on the opposite sides of the political spectrum. We still talk about our families. And one member, who was very close to Marybeth, has continued to pay to keep The Front Stoop open so that, when we like, we can go back and read Marybeth's words.
As I was "prepping" to write this diary, I came across a donation page that one of her daughters has set up to solicit donations to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. One legacy of being Marybeth's child has been to react to her passing by seeking solution. If you are so inclined, feel free to go here, and donate a couple of bucks to that effort. In Marybeth's obituary, she asked that people donate to
St Dominic Academy in Jersey City, which Marybeth felt had laid the foundation for her journey into a vigorous adulthood (including her time as an attorney). In either case, if you decide to donate, tell them The Front Stoop sent you.
I will end with a song by Bruce Springsteen. A proud Jersey Girl, in the best sense of that term, Marybeth loved The Boss. The selection I have chosen was never recorded in the studio before 2011, yet was performed live long before that. I suspect that Marybeth had heard the song, and loved it. This is for my Marybeth, and for all the other Marybeths who are still missed today during this Breast Cancer Awareness Month. You are not forgotten.