Calling all writers, journalists, chronic over-sharers! Share a story about how Alicia’s work or story touched you, inspired you, or moved you to action with us and we’ll publish it right here.
We’ve been reading lovely anecdotes about how Alicia’s work and life touched or inspired people in the Comments section of this site and around the internet, specifically in the comments section of the news articles or blog posts.
But what about those of us without personal websites or a hankering to tell our story to a larger audience than just those people who read all 600 comments on the Chronicle article? We have an opportunity for you.
You can share your story with a larger audience – we can publish it right here on the site.
How?
Share a note or story (stick to 300 words or so) to submitapost@msparlette.com.
Please include:
– your first name (or alias)
– how you found Alicia’s story or her writing
– why it caught your eye/attention
– feel free to include pictures, links to your site or other sites that are relevant, and your contact information if you would like it posted
Direct any questions to submitapost@msparlette.com and keep an eye out for guest posts starting to crop up on the site in the next week or so.
Alicia Parlette 
I started reading a blog “Same Time Tomorrow” written by Sean Holton who battled brain cancer for two years. He was a journalist at the Orlando Sentinel in Orlando, Florida. He too lost his battle with cancer in Nov. 29th, 2011. And in one of the comments somebody suggested him to read Alicia’s Story who also was battling cancer.
I googled Alicia’s name and came up with her story. Once I started to read the first chapter I couldn’t stop. I felt like I knew her that she was a close friend. I loved how she put her worries in God. I know in my heart that she is in heaven. No more pain, no more sorrow. I hope to meet her in heaven someday.
I am a random reader of Alicia’s story and did not know her but I stumbled upon Alicia’s story randomly one day when I was on SFGate and having had some very close people in my life die young from cancer her article caught my eye.
I read every single one of her entries a bunch of times and was so sad when she stopped writing. I did not think the worst though and never gave up hope that she was recovering. I am so sad right now to see that she passed away. This disease is so terrible. I just finished a run for breast cancer on the Embarcadero last week and hope that we can find a way to get rid of this nasty illness. My thoughts go out to her Dad and brother and to all her loved ones who have had such heartache in their lives.
I am another anonymous reader of Alica’s story from 5 years ago when she first became ill and started her diary. I came across her work because I enjoy reading news online from other countries and am a registered nurse with an interest in health issues. Her writing was so open, honest and engaging, I read everything I could find.
Since her diary ended and over the past few years I’ve regularly searched for more information about her and never found any. I knew she was very ill but I never stopped hoping for a miracle. Was so sad to read today in the Chronicle online that she had died a few months ago.
Peace and good wishes to her dad, brother, fiance, friends, doggie and other loved ones. I’ll never forget this young girl, even though I’m all the way from the other side of the world, Australia.
I just wanted to say somewhere that I’m glad I was able to get to know Alicia, and I will always remember the new year’s eves we spent together, especially the one we spent dancing at a bar in the castro. She was a very lovely girl, and I’m very sorry to hear of her passing.
I’m very sad to learn, very sad, tohear that Alicia has passed. I’m not family or a “friend”. I’m an anonymous reader who was drawn to her stories in the Chronicle and read each one as it was posted. I was also one of the very many who looked for updates after Alicia made the decision to battle her challenge in privite. I searched and kept my link to the Cronincle hoping for good news. It never came.
I think there is nothing more tragic than a young life lost. In this case a young life I had some remote investment in albeit through a computer.
I am a man of faith so I will trust in God Alicia is home.
I discovered Alicia’s writing when the Chronicle first published her story, which I followed avidly. Until I read Alicia, I’d been ill only once, five years prior, but it had been life-threatening. I remembered my dawning terror when I became aware that I had more painful and scary diagnostic and surgical procedures to go through, and I wanted to hold her hand as she went through her own, praying that she’d be healed as I was. I was tremendously moved by her bravery and strength, her courage to be vulnerable and the honesty of her writing. When she grew too ill to continue writing I felt as if my best friend had moved away and wondered what became of her. In 2006, I became seriously ill again with a chronic lung condition and remembered Alicia’s story. It helped me to think of her courage. A few months ago, I did a search and found nothing until the week prior to her death when the Chronicle published her last piece. I am grieved. I have lived a full life. She was just a young woman on the cusp of vital new discoveries and her life was cut short. Her writing is a gift to others living with and dying of serious illness, but her life was the greater gift and words cannot convey my sorrow at that loss, to her and her family, fiance and friends.