Charlie, Marta, Sydney, Nyel and the Tree – December 23, 2026

So… here it is, three days into the New Year and our house is almost back to ‘normal’ – the tree stripped of ornaments and lights, the greenery and holly in the burn pile, festive decorations put away.  Under ordinary circumstances I’d be pleased to have life resume its usual rhythms – beginning with the Skamokawa Swamp Opera scheduled for this coming weekend!  And, in many ways I am.  But it was so strange to put away a Christmas that never really happened.

As we sorted gifts – this pile for Marta, that pile for Charlie, these for me, these for you – on New Year’s Eve – it all felt a bit surreal.  Christmas was over but… although we had prepared for it with our usual Tender Loving Care, it simply hadn’t happened.  It was as if we had entered a time warp – all the right cues and clues and then… a missing week.

So… we boxed up Charlie’s and Marta’s gifts – left under the tree when we made the mad dash to Portland to get help for Nyel.  Today I mailed those boxes from the Oysterville Post Office as we headed out to Portland once more – this time to see Nyel’s main cardiologist.  We call him the “General Contractor.”

Kenny Tam Helps Undecorate the High Spots – January 2, 2017

During that week at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital, Nyel saw two electrophysiologists from the Legacy Medical Cardiologist team – we call them “the Electricians” – and two other cardiologists – “the plumbers,” perhaps, – plus several nurse specialists.  We felt in good hands, but we need our General Contractor to tell give us the long-term picture and the what-to-expects and the what-we-can-and-can’t-do’s. We suspect he may have been out of town for the holiday.  We’ll be very glad to see him tomorrow.

So here we are, back in Portland just a few days after we left.  We are in the same motel that the kids and I were in – and, by request, in the same room Marta and I shared.  At home we left only a naked tree as witness that Christmas had come and gone in Oysterville. Under ordinary circumstances, I would feel bereft.  Instead… just a bit disoriented and full of hope that the days will get better for Nyel.  How ironic that he, with his big, kind heart, is suffering from heart failure.

Would that our circumstances could, indeed, become ordinary once again.