{"id":2971,"date":"2015-02-19T01:24:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T08:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=2971"},"modified":"2015-02-19T01:24:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T08:24:38","slug":"my-friend-laurie-the-post-i-never-wanted-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/19\/my-friend-laurie-the-post-i-never-wanted-to-write\/","title":{"rendered":"My Friend Laurie: the Post I Never Wanted to Write"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"X<\/a><\/p>\n

“Inside you someplace” laughed my friend Laurie, “lives a 16-year-old boy!” \u00a0We were talking about cyber fiction; I was trying to explain my attraction to this geeky, otherworldly material to the only person who would really understand what I was talking about.<\/p>\n

I’ve known her since the early 80s, when I produced her appearance on TODAY; she had come to discuss her masterful LA Times Salvadoran death squads series.\u00a0Our friendship deepened in the years I lived in LA, her long-time home. \u00a0We were both major Web freaks. \u00a0After all, \u00a0both of our minds bounced around like the facts on the Web (often to the confusion of those with whom we were speaking.) We were struggling to, between us, get enough information to understand how this astounding Internet worked. \u00a0Laurie found The Electronic Cafe<\/a>, an arts space in Santa Monica that hosted speakers ranging from the EP of The Legend of Zelda<\/a> to the founder of Earthlink<\/a>. \u00a0We were on our way. It was thrilling.<\/p>\n

We never stopped talking when we were together – circling around topics, bouncing to other ones then back to the first — or third. \u00a0We never got lost and were always intoxicated by the messy exchange that was our conversation, sometimes joined by her husband Henry Weinstein and their daughter Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

They were, Laurie called it, “a triad.” \u00a0From the beginning Elizabeth was an active partner in their lives; the “adult” events, the travel, the baseball, the cooking and, lucky for all of us, the time spent with parental pals. \u00a0The three of them were a beautiful thing.<\/p>\n

When she decided high school journalists needed more resources, she founded, from sheer determination (i.e. with hardly any money) Associated Student Press<\/a>, to help high school reporters learn the rules, skills and sheer joy of journalism. \u00a0 I worked with her on a couple of their events, including a high school journalism convention, and it was so great; the kids loved it. \u00a0 We did too. \u00a0I knew the depth of her\u00a0affinity for teenagers because\u00a0she had\u00a0become a real friend and mentor, quite independent of us, \u00a0to our younger son. \u00a0It was a friendship he treasures to this day. \u00a0She and Henry came to his wedding.<\/p>\n

Laurie Becklund died on February 8th\u00a0of metastatic breast cancer. \u00a0She used every reporting skill she’d ever learned to locate experts, treatment and allies and I believe extended her life through her fierce determination. \u00a0In the past year, she applied that determination to advocacy for people with advanced disease and the need for “big data” tools to aggregate and parse new information\u00a0and the effect of\u00a0new treatments to help find trends and flaws in treatments, drugs and drug trials. \u00a0She also challenged researchers, in talks and in person \u00a0“We have the cells to help your research. \u00a0Use us.” \u00a0She called her campaign Use Us or Lose Us.<\/p>\n

(I’m telling you about her post-newspaper\u00a0years. \u00a0You can read about Laurie as an award-winning journalist here<\/a> in this LATimes profile and other stories<\/a> that will, I’m sure, keep coming.)<\/p>\n

On the day she finally told me that her cancer had returned, Laurie sat in my car as we drove out of the driveway and said “Don’t put the sun visor down. I don’t want to waste any chances to look at\u00a0the trees.” As I struggle to write this post, I think of that afternoon and her hunger for everything from a beautiful view to a cool new technology to visit to a new country to a personal story gleaned from a conversation. \u00a0She was full of courage and curiosity and loyalty; she was a gifted mother and wife and friend; she was — Laurie.<\/p>\n

We are about to leave for Los Angeles for her memorial service. \u00a0I have been so haunted and sad; it’s very hard to write this. \u00a0I’m hoping to find some — some something<\/em> — as we join what I know will be a crowd of people who Laurie, Henry and Elizabeth so generously included in their lives. \u00a0When I told one friend how sad I was, she wrote “I wish you comfort in your memories.” \u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n

The traditional Jewish version is “May her memory be a blessing.” \u00a0That it certainly is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Inside you someplace” laughed my friend Laurie, “lives a 16-year-old boy!” \u00a0We were talking about cyber fiction; I was trying to explain my attraction to this geeky, otherworldly material to the only person who would really understand what I was talking about. I’ve known her since the early 80s, when I produced her appearance on … Continue reading My Friend Laurie: the Post I Never Wanted to Write<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4,6,42,2764,7,9,60,51],"tags":[3177,3174,3175,3178,3169,3171,3173,3170,693,3167,3168,3176,3172,2175,3179],"class_list":["post-2971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-culture","category-family","category-i-seem-to-write-a-lot-of-obits","category-life","category-politics","category-science","category-webtech","tag-activision","tag-cyberfiction","tag-earthlink","tag-eddie-dombrower","tag-electronic-cafe","tag-henry-weinstein","tag-high-school-journalists","tag-iics","tag-internet","tag-laurie-becklund","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-sky-dayton","tag-student-press","tag-web","tag-zelda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-LV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2991,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions\/2991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}