Commentary: When personal and professional paths cross, it can be emotional

The last time I spoke with Starla Hauser — April 3, the meeting remains on my calendar — she hugged me and called me friend.

To those who knew Starla, this is no surprise, for she had many friends. For me, it was another aspect of the relationships I have built that transcends the professional into the personal in my role as a community journalist.

Starla and I had been talking about fundraising for a trip she and her family were hoping to take to Hawaii, a set vacation time for memories as Starla continued her eight year fight against cancer.

I’m happy to say that her family took their trip, aided with funds from friends and family in Gig Harbor and beyond.

This was the third story I’d written about Starla and her family. The first was in August 2015 about her daughter’s role in a Disney Channel show. The second was in May 2016 when Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One helped Starla’s brother, Audie Graham, move into her house following the death of their mother.

The fourth story I wrote about Starla appeared in our July 13 edition and announced her death on June 27. I spoke with her sister, Misty Costello, who told me about Starla’s childhood, her life and her ongoing legacy in her own four children.

This last Saturday I attended Starla’s memorial service at Chapel Hill Church to offer my condolences and say goodbye to the kindest and most genuine woman I have known.

I attended the service in a dual role, not only as a representative for my newspaper, which had published several stories about this woman and her family, but also as an individual whose life had been touched by her, who had been called friend by her.

This mix of professional and personal is often the case for community journalists like myself. While I maintain the innate objectivity valued by my profession, there are stories and local figures that work their way into my heart.

Starla and her family are one such example.

My work brings me not only to local businesses, organizations and government, but also inside homes throughout Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula, my coverage area. In this way I have known — and shared — the triumphs and trials of my neighbors, your neighbors, over the past two years.

These stories are not always easy, in fact, often they’re quite difficult sometimes for me to write but most frequently for people to tell. These stories are the ones that touch my heart and the ones that readers have told me touched theirs as well.

There are some stories that require a higher level of objectivity and personal distance, such as a City Council roundup or coverage of a development project. My role in those articles are to report the facts and clear up misinformation.

There are other stories where my job is to give someone a voice and a place to share their story. This is where Starla’s story fits, alongside several others, and where it continues to resonate with me as it has for many readers in the community.

It is a privilege to know Starla, to have been let into her life and tell her story. It is a privilege to know every one of my neighbors who has a story to share with me, and I thank you for that honor.

This story was originally published July 26, 2017 at 4:54 PM with the headline "Commentary: When personal and professional paths cross, it can be emotional."