Angela died last Thursday. She was only 51.

I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around that reality, even though she had been battling a particularly insidious form of brain cancer for more than a year. Her tumor was supposedly the better of the two types of brain cancer, if the disease ever can be viewed as good. In the end, that didn’t matter.

We all still kind of expected– or, more accurately, hoped for– a miracle, like most people do, I suppose, when a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness. But every time Angela’s partner, Kim, sent out a message with good news about this treatment or that therapy, or something encouraging a doctor had said, it almost always was tempered with some bad news. The bad news came more often in recent weeks, until finally, surrounded by family and friends, Angela was gone.

Some readers may recall that I wrote in my first column at the Weekly [Oct. 25-31, 2007] that Angela’s illness was one of the main reasons I left Phoenix to take a chance on a new job and life in Monterey. Her cancer diagnosis came at a time in her life when everything was going well, when she was healthy (outwardly, anyway) and happy. It hammered home, in a deeply personal way, that life is short and precious. Her illness was the push I needed to take a leap of faith– one of the many reasons I loved her.

Though I can’t stop thinking about her, and the hole inside me is wider than I could have imagined, her death is more than a personal loss to me, her other friends and family.

It is more global because as a photographer/reporter, the reach of Angela’s often-extraordinary work knew no bounds.

She began her career as a photographer, but grew into an excellent writer and storyteller. No stranger to California or Monterey County, Angela worked at both the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune, where she was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning staff for her photos of the aftermath of the Oct. 17, 1989, Bay Area earthquake. She had visited Monterey County often when she lived in the state, and loved the beach, hiking at Point Lobos and the photography galleries.

Angela was gifted in her craft and saw stories where others didn’t or would not even think to look. She had an uncanny ability to connect with her subjects and make them know she cared about them and what they had to say. She was a good listener and her keen eye enabled her to capture the essence of those she interviewed. Whether shooting news, features or profiles to accompany her written words, the photos always told much of the story. She never phoned it in.

In the months since I had lived in Monterey County, we communicated by snail mail, e-mail, and on the phone. Angela spoke excitedly about coming to see me here when she got “better” and to revisit haunts from her younger days, though I knew deep down that she never would have the chance. She probably suspected as much, herself, but no one ever wants to admit that.

So now, as I slowly work on accepting that I never will see Angela or talk to her again, I am trying to find the good, the hope in a circumstance that just is so not right. In that way, her death is not the end, but rather yet another beginning.

Angela took on life with zeal, passion and humor, and the best way I can honor her is to remind myself daily to live the same way. Among the many things she taught me were patience, love, acceptance and– oh yeah– a dynamite Italian sausage recipe. Her courage and strength this past year were nothing less than astonishing; she never gave up, even risking her remaining time on a last all-out assault on the cancer that was chancy at best, and something to be admired at worst. Those are her precious gifts, along with her wonderful body of work. If I think I am slipping or start feeling sorry for myself, I’ll just think of her.

A “life celebration” for Angela is scheduled next month at the Phoenix Art Museum.

Ironically, one of the last stories Angela worked on for The Arizona Republic before her cancer diagnosis in May 2007 was the increasing popularity of such events.

“In this multimedia age,” Angela wrote, “many services are produced and staged; PowerPoint presentations, slide shows and video clips are edited to tell the story of a person’s life.”

People, she continued, are “forgoing ‘Amazing Grace’ on the organ for the Rolling Stones through a sound system.”

Knowing Angela, she probably would want both. And I think she would have to smile at the irony of the timing of her words, and perhaps at her own prescience.