The Camino de Santiago

“It took us a long time, but we finally made it Linda, to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Here we are on the stone bridge featured in so many of the guidebooks. We have the sound of pebbles crushing under our feet, the feel of the breeze on our cheeks, and the sun in our eyes.”

“We slept well last night at the Albergo, and you made new friends there already, Linda, you always have been the social one.”

“In front of us stand the Pyrenees mountains, they look huge, but step by step we shall manage to climb them. There is no rush. You are very ready with your scallop shell on your pack, while tucked inside is the stone you have chosen to carry and leave upon the pile. The stone is a symbol of leaving behind all your fears and mistakes, let's put it on the pile right now.”

“While I am near you Linda, and speaking as close as this, I want to say ‘do you know how much I love you?.”

After Linda, my stepmother, got the bad news she made a bucket list.

The stand-out goal was to walk the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile walking pilgrimage from France across Spain. There are many reasons that people want to do this, but for Linda, it would be a meditation, she would tread each step in mindfulness and with thought upon what life’s meaning was. It would be a voyage of self-discovery, and perhaps a farewell.

When I found out about the unexpected plan, I worried for her. She had never travelled before, and now she was less than healthy. But Linda was nothing if not determined, so rather than try to deter, I said I’d go with her. The revised plan was to tread each step, though, with different motivations, we’d walk the Compostela together.

The training began. Previously nonathletic Linda was to be found walking all about the countryside that summer, even entering a half marathon. She became obsessed! This was all while she was going through her medical treatments. Nothing would stop her from the vision she had set.

Hope was held, but unfortunately, the cancer continued its own conquest. Still, my dear dreamer did not give up, no, Linda faced down the forecast future with defiance. Her daily training was the positive focus she needed. While I joined in when I could.

We booked our tickets!

Meanwhile, she did a solo road trip to the South Island (NZ), where she walked each day amidst its scenic wonder – blogging in the evenings as she rested, sharing the few photos she had taken.

But then Covid arrived… that great spoiler of plans, and Linda was stuck in the tiny townlet of Tekapo. It was months till she was allowed to even travel back home to Tauranga - which she did. But travel anywhere else at the stage was out of the question, so airfares were refunded, and goals adjusted. Despite all this Linda was determined she'd still get there one day, though the wind had been taken out of her sails. The vision faltered. Focus shifted.

I did not see her for some time, but then my Father told me she had to go into hospice. Wanting to see her, while scared of this final journey she was upon, I went to visit. She was so much smaller, weakened; her eyes stayed closed as she lay still faintly breathing. My heart was, and still is heavy with it.

I took out my phone and played The Gypsy Kings for her (one of her favourites) then whispered our imagined journey’s start into her ear, I hoped to gift her with virtual travel.

“It took us a long time, but we finally made it Linda…”

Wordcount: 631