The last time I telephoned Tricia Graham was about a year ago. I was calling from Maryland, almost D.C., about a “Backward Glances” photo in The Times Leader. It was a group of coal miners, underground, dirty, smiling, in two rows, like they were posing for their high school yearbook. In fact, one of them was in the Martins Ferry class of 1971, my class. But the photo should not have been taken, because it could have caused an explosion underground, and was a violation of federal law. You know, electricity. And several men in the picture were members of the Grim Reapers motorcycle club, but were not wearing their colors. Plus, one of the miners had a copy of “Hustler” magazine, but not any ordinary issue of “Hustler,” but the most offensive, infamous, disgusting issue, the one where the cover shot was a woman’s torso being fed through a meat grinder.

So I called Tricia, the life styles editor, knowing she would get the blame, even though she wouldn’t know about it until she saw it in the paper. She let me go through my whole speech about federal law, Grim Reapers, and “Hustler” magazine. Then Tricia said, “You know Joe, I didn’t get a single complaint about that picture. But that same day we reprinted the Crypto Quote from the day before, and we had 30 calls.”

Then she started laughing, and I started laughing. Her laugh was contagious, every time. Her laugh was full of life. Anyone who was with her was more alive. She was a gift. Her laugh was a gift from god.

And now she has been taken away by the cruel judges of biology and heredity, who don’t give a flying damn about children or spouses or friends or … mothers. I can’t tell you anything new; it’s the way it’s always been. Tricia’s mother died in her twenties. Tricia died in her forties. My father died when I was 11. Some people swear, and some people go to church. Some people have good hearts.

Tricia had a good heart. The best. I got to tell you, Patricia Neal Graham was special. She didn’t have enemies. She didn’t even have people who disliked her.

She wasn’t perfect. Everybody has issues. But she was pretty close.

I liked few photographs of her. Maybe it’s me; I’m verbal. But they did not seem to capture her essence to me. She was just too alive to be captured on a single frame, or in a one 250th of a second. She just had too much life; it could not be contained in the medium of photography. Likewise, anything I write about Tricia is a cheap imitation.

I was her boss. She was a hard worker, worked well with others, creative, never complained. And there were times when she had things to complain about. Major things. She just laughed. Her laugh could light up the newsroom. Her laugh carried the breath of babies, and walking, and life.

Her laugh could soften the blows of reporters who had seen too much death. I’m thinking about the flash flood on June 14, 1990, on Wegee Creek, Pipe Creek, and Cumberland Run that killed 26 people. Everyone at The Times Leader remembered more than they wanted about that. I was in Wheeling then, but I remembered more than I wanted to remember. That was our job. Tricia did not start out as the life styles editor. She was a true journalist.

The last time I saw Tricia was late this spring when I visited the newsroom. She made me laugh. I talked to everybody at the life styles department, that is anybody left. Every newspaper in the country has been devastated by the economy, and the Internet. But she was still her sweet, happy self. When I was the editor and she was the life styles editor I would call her in for weekly meetings about Sunday’s paper. I really enjoyed those meetings. I knew she did not need my supervision, but she helped cut my stress.

So the last time I saw Tricia, she made me laugh, and then her phone rang.

I wandered around the newsroom, talking to people. After about an hour I was leaving. Tricia was still on the phone, taking notes. I thought about interrupting her, but decided she was too busy.

So I never saw her again. I never heard her laugh again. My loss.

But stories like Tricia’s don’t end. Her story will be carried on by her children, and Ron, everyone else who loved her. We all suffer at our own loss.

Tricia.