PORT TOWNSEND — This Saturday, Dorle Campbell has invited all her friends and neighbors to her house on Lopez Avenue in Port Townsend for a big party.
The reason?
To help her celebrate all the upcoming holidays — Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day — that she doesn’t expect to live to see.
“We’ll have different holiday decorations in every room,” she says.
Campbell, 63, is a retired teacher. She has terminal cancer.
With treatment no longer an option, she is surrounding herself with friends and family and celebrating life more than one day at a time.
“I love holidays,” she says.
Campbell also loves to get together with friends.
A year and half ago, when she learned that cancer had spread to her liver, she invited all the friends she made since she moved to Port Townsend to a weekly potluck luncheon.
“Tuesdays with Dorle” has become a standing engagement for the lunch bunch, which numbers up to 20 people, including five cancer survivors.
“This is an invigorating event every Tuesday,” Campbell says.