No News Of Alicia Parlette

A few years back when I thought I might be sick, I did some research on the web and found Alicia Parlette's story. (Luckily, I found out soon after that I was not sick.) I immediately was taken by the 23-year old journalist in San Francisco who was writing a series for her paper about her cancer (sarcoma). Her writing was beautiful and compelling. It pulled you in and made you feel as if you were walking that walk with her--going to her doctor appointments and waiting to hear about the progression of her disease, and experiencing her ups and downs with her boyfriend and the solidness of her family relationships and friendships. She talked about her other travails such as having lost her mother a few years earlier. It was almost like reality TV, except without the TV and much better.

I would forget to read her updates regularly, but then all of a sudden I would remember and search for the latest submissions on the web. I would catch up and be happy that she seemed to still be doing well. A particularly long gap in my reading occurred, and then one day I checked on the web and found out that she had quit the newspaper and the column, but was continuing her updates through a blog at the paper. Again, I logged on and read some more of her stunning writing. About a year ago, she quit writing in any medium. I checked online today, and there are a number of posts inquiring as to where and how she is. There is no answer, except that her former newspaper has made a statement that she wants her privacy. This does not sound good, as maybe she is sicker. It has raised all kinds of questions about how much does a writer owe her readers when she invites them into her life? I guess we all would like to hear how she is doing, but she controls her privacy, as it should be.