Portland Magazine
February 22, 2023
Story by Jessica Murphy Moo
THIS STORY DIDN’T start as a UP story.
I met my friend, the late Wayne Tkel, SJ, when we were both teaching at Xavier High School on the island of Chuuk, in the Federated States of Micronesia. A novitiate from Palau, he had a great sense of humor and a certain comfort with silence—two qualities I admire. In the late ’90s, Wayne moved to Boston, near where my family lived, to complete his theological studies, and over time he became a member of my family. A brother. When my grandmother sat at the piano to play the family songs around the holidays, he was right there singing along with us. And when it was time for his ordination, I wanted to be there for him, so I flew to Palau and got the opportunity to meet his beautiful family.
The photo (right) was taken on the weekend of his ordination. That’s his niece in his arms. I’ve always loved this photo (I keep it in an album) because you can see how much he adores her. Time passed, as it does. He briefly returned to Boston for his tertianship, and ended up officiating my wedding while he was there. After he returned to Palau, we talked on occasion, but not too often. He was busy running a parish, and I was busy with family and, eventually, with a move to Portland, Oregon, to start working on this magazine.
Then in 2019, after saying New Year’s Day Mass, Wayne went home and suffered a fatal heart attack. I hadn’t seen him in more than 10 years, but I found myself missing him intensely. It was a lonely grief. I wasn’t able to gather with anyone who knew him. I wrote to his family in Palau. Maybe a week or so after sending the condolence note, I got a strange text from my husband. “Come home quick,” he wrote. “Wayne’s niece is here at the house.”
I rushed home from my office at UP and found my kiddos sitting on the couch, showing Wayne’s niece, Brandi, the photo album I’d made of his ordination. Her family had noted that the return address on my condolence card was near where she lived. Turns out, Brandi was a student at University of Portland. Turns out, she was the toddler in my photo album getting a big hug from her uncle after his ordination.
The moment felt orchestrated; it felt impossible. Could the world really be this small? I finally had a shared space for the grief that had, before that moment, been happening in a vacuum. Months later, when Brandi’s dad, Wayne’s brother, came to UP to visit, Fr. Ed Obermiller, CSC, offered a Mass in remembrance of Wayne, and I felt a lot of gratitude for the people we meet in this big-small world and the experiences that bring us close as a human family.
Our Winter 2023 issue of Portland magazine organically grew into one about the places that make us who we are. University of Portland may very well be one of those places for you. The nature of the connections—sometimes intentional, sometimes full of mystery—that are forged in these holy places are worth examining and cherishing. We hope you enjoy the stories in this issue as much as we enjoyed pulling them together.
—Jessica Murphy Moo, Editor
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