Many of you have noticed that I did not follow up following my arrival into Santiago and have asked if I was going to fulfill that promise. This is my afterword and reflection and I hope you enjoy it. I enjoyed writing it and thinking about my experience
I arrived in Santiago de Compostella on July 22 with Kara. After walking with Rick for about 30 days he was in the hospital with his feet. It turns out that he was in the hospital for 7 days then returned home. In late September he had his two toes fixed with a minor surgery and he told me that the doctor is probably not going to fix the other foot as it isn’t a medical problem.
I spent a couple of days in Santiago doing many of the peregrino activities that include welcoming and seeing people I met on the path and focusing on the cathedral. I did a guided tour and attended a Mass. The Mass was spectacular albeit in Spanish. I stayed in a hotel about a mile from the cathedral so when I left in the morning I tried to stay in the old section of the city. One afternoon I walked a couple of miles to the hospital and visited Rick. This was right before David brought a Compestella certificate to Rick.
After a couple of days I rented a car from the airport and drove to Muxia (pro. Moo-sheea) spent several hours in the beautiful seaside community then went to Finestere which once was considered the end of the earth (Finnis = end and terra = land). I had a beautiful hotel on a hill overlooking the bay and Atlantic. Finally ate a dinner of octopus while there. Delicious meal. I walked quite a bit in the town spent one night then drove back to Santiago early the next morning to catch a flight to Madrid. I overnighted in Madrid then flew home sweet home.
In Kurt Koontz’s book A Million Steps he has a sentence that really hit home with me after finishing the Camino two months ago. “…be aware that this (the walk) is not your decision…The Camino decided it was time for you to be there.” How true that was for me. It was divine intervention in my life that after three years of planning and interruptions I would leave for Paris then the Camino 3 days after my dear brother died. The Camino indeed decided that it was time for me to be there and was needed to heal my grief. On about stage 30 I was walking with Father Rick and he asked me what I was leaving in Spain. After thinking about his question for an hour or so I responded that I was leaving my grief but taking home my sadness. That remains true today as it was then as I am still very sad to have lost my brother and friend.
Before embarking on the Camino Dee had been praying that I would find someone to walk with. The first day of walking is one of the most difficult due to the rise in elevation. It is a slow but steady rise of about 4200 feet. When I was about a third of the way up I stopped to take a drink or get a snack and by coincidence (coincidence?) sat down next to Rick along the path in front of a statue of Mary and Jesus. We spoke for a few minutes then I departed. Throughout the day we would pass each other but never really talked again. Sometime during the third day (Pamplona) we met up and started walking together. From then on we walked together up until the day before entering Santiago. On about the 8th day I learned that Rick is a Jesuit Priest. He has become a lifelong friend.
When I talk to people about my experiences on the Camino I always tell them that I came home a different person than I when I left; however, I have difficulty identifying to myself exactly what has changed in my life and expressing it in words. My hope is that as I create this afterward that words will come to me to reveal it to me and then to express it to you.
For 34 days I walked with my community of fellow peregrinos every day. I started the Camino by myself and early on became a community with other single walkers. Some early days there were 5-7 of us then towards the end there were 1-3 of us walking every day. Not included in my 1-3 fellow peregrinos are God and Rodney. I walked with and mentally talked with both of them every day. Most days we walked both as a group and singularly depending upon whether we wanted to talk or be in solitude. I really enjoyed walking with someone and talking or walking silently or walking by myself. Either was fine with everyone as we all walked together and singularly as we needed or wanted.
As I would meet and walk with someone I always made it a point to ask them what their story was; meaning why are they walking? I believe that everyone walking has a story and I learned that most included death of a loved one. While none of us were therapists we all helped each other by listening, crying, sharing and being together with common reasons for the Camino “deciding that it was time for each of us to be there”. I remember our group coming up to a field where there was supposed to be a food truck. It wasn’t there but there were several peregrinos sitting in small groups or alone. I recognized a young girl sitting alone and decided to talk with her. She is from Lithuania and had lost her mother. For the next 30-45 minutes we shared our story with each other and shed tears together. Each time I shared my story it seems to have helped me share it the next time and made me stronger. I also shared it with a group that was being lead by 5 nuns at a convent albergue. Although I was a wreck sharing, it helped to talk to them. Following this encounter was a Mass. During the blessing of the peregrinos at the end of Mass my eyes met the eyes of the two priests and I know that they could see my pain and through placing a hand on my shoulder and making the sign of the cross on my forehead again helped me. It’s the accumulations of all these times that helped me leave a better person and to leave my grief in Spain.
I learned that angels are real and they visit even me. When I was at the Cruz de Ferro which is a cross on top of a pole surrounded by hundreds of thousands of rocks that peregrinos bring to represent their burdens I was visited. I was crying uncontrollably sitting with my head between my legs near the base of the rock pile. After a while a hand was on my shoulder consoling me. I thought it was Rick but after a while I saw that it was a woman who came to sit with me. She asked what language I spoke then gave me some words which I don’t remember. I put my head down briefly and when I brought it back up she was gone. I know that she was an angel sent by God to be with me at this very low part of my pilgrimage and I give Him all the glory.
Everyone on the camino is nice and accepting of everyone else. I think that we all know that we are in it together and that we shared the trials of walking every day. If someone needed help or appeared to need help someone was always there to offer it. What I thought throughout was how wonderful it would be if the world was doing a pilgrimage together and we could all get along recognizing that again, we are all the same in this world and can get along together.
Something else I had decided before starting the camino was that I would not talk about politics or anything really controversial. I made it known early on through some subtle (or not so subtle) comments. This held true throughout and again reduced tension or conflict that separates friends and families for silly reasons.
For about thirty days I walked with someone who endured sometimes severe pain in his toes and feet. Rick would awaken about an hour before our departure time to work on tending to his feet and toes. He went to multiple doctors, podiatrists, and several hospitals when he had infection and became too worried about the health of his feet. I never heard him complain. That speaks of the kind of person he is as well as to the human spirit of desiring to continue in the face of tremendous discomfort to achieve the goal we all set out to accomplish. I know that I could not have done what he did and I learned from him as I watched him every day. I returned a person who tries not to complain.
For probably 40 years I have subscribed and read the Wall Street Journal. With the advent of the internet I have added too many political sites that I checked and read too many times each day. I was hooked reading sensationalized stories. One of my goals was to eliminate my habit of reading political websites. On the Camino I found that I still read them and I believe that was out of having too much time in the albergues in the evening and desiring a taste of home (albeit a poor taste). Upon returning to the US I have deleted those political sites and don’t miss them nor the stress and anxiety of reading those stories.
You may recall that during the last part of my walk I was with Kara and Amy. Kara left Spain still troubled by the death of her father. She just recently reached out to me from India that she has reached the point I reached at Cruz de Ferro with grief. iM so happy for her and anxious to talk with her very soon. I still communicate with Donna and Rick. Dee and I recently visited Rick and the a couple of weeks later had lunch with Donna.
What’s next for Pop? Dee and I have flights scheduled in May 2023 to fly to Spain for about 5 weeks. My plan is to walk the Camino Portuguese from Porto, Portugal to Santiago. It’s 140 miles along the coast of Portugal. Now I’m talking to Rick and hoping that he will join me. Dee may stay in Spain while I walk but go to another region.