Redemption

We are like moths. We come to flap our ponchos, hugging the statue of Santiago. We mass, we are en masse. Leaving the cathedral to book into refugios only to return to our hub.

I have been like this for two days. Wheeling the city like a lost hunch-back of Notre Dame. I have walked twice from my bed in Monte de Gozo to Santiago hoping to find closure.

Then returning last night I met up with people I thought that I would never see again, including and especially Stephan, who I had walked with from France to Burgos, and I felt enfolded. Warm with love received from all and given to all, I walked this morning again to the city from the refugio. There were four of us: Stephan, Pieter, Wolfgang and me. I knew the way so I led them into the city through the Porto do Camino and into the cathedral. I gave them order in hugging the saint, visiting the relics and then the mass began.

It was emotional for all of us and we kept holding each other. Monica, a tiny Italian who had hobbled most of the Camino Frances arrived late and exhausted. We shed a tear. Then it hit me – the length of time and distance that I had undertaken, the things that I had learnt, the people I had met, the opportunity to experience love in a universal form. I wept and in doing so I felt an immense sense of release and then absolute perfect peace.

It is what I came for.

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