The wooden floorboards creaked under our host’s hurried footsteps as she delivered the news in hushed French-accented English. “Someone is dying in a house across the street,” she warned, fingers nervously adjusting her apron ties. “Please, no loud noises tonight.” Through the half-opened shutters of our third-floor guesthouse, the three of us – two British sisters and I – watched the cobblestone street below where twilight painted St. Jean Pied de Port in amber and shadow.
Streetlights flickered to life like hesitant stars as shuttered windows snapped shut along Rue de la Citadelle. The sisters’ shoulders touched mine as we leaned forward, our breath fogging the ancient glass. Somewhere beyond our line of sight, a family was saying their last goodbyes while we pilgrims prepared for our first hello to the Camino de Santiago.
That evening, we unpacked more than our backpacks. Over cups of herbal tea that grew cold between our palms, the younger sister – her freckles stark under the dim bulb – mentioned they’d lost their brother to leukemia. “Thirty-two years old,” the elder added, twisting her woolen hat until the stitches groaned. When my turn came, the words tumbled out like stones from a torn pocket: both parents gone within six months, my father’s Parkinson’s and mother’s broken heart, the unbearable lightness of being orphaned at fifty-five.
Outside, the medieval town held its breath. The occasional chime from the 17th-century church clock marked time for the dying and the grieving alike. We three strangers, bound by loss and the promise of morning footsteps, discovered what all pilgrims learn eventually – that the Camino Frances begins long before the first stone marker. It starts in these quiet moments when grief, that most solitary of travelers, finds companionship.
Our bunk beds became confessionals that night. The sisters’ whispered memories of hospital vigils intertwined with my stories of clearing out childhood homes. We traded survival tactics like seasoned hikers comparing gear: the younger sister swore by sunrise runs, the elder by baking her brother’s favorite scones every Sunday. My contribution – long walks that always ended at airports – made them laugh, that surprised, hiccuping laughter that follows unexpected joy in dark times.
Through the thin walls, we heard our host moving about, probably preparing the next day’s breakfast for pilgrims. The scent of baking bread would greet us at dawn, a mundane miracle to fuel our extraordinary journey. As streetlights cast striped shadows across our backpacks – already lined up like obedient soldiers by the door – I realized we’d already crossed our first metaphorical mountain. The Pyrenees could wait; tonight we’d scaled the more treacherous peaks of speaking our sorrows aloud.
When silence finally settled over our room, punctuated only by the occasional sniffle or turning page (the elder sister reading a trail guide by penlight), the town’s nocturnal sounds took center stage. An owl’s question from the ramparts. The distant rush of the Nive River. And beneath it all, the unspoken understanding that tomorrow’s physical journey would mirror the emotional one we’d begun tonight – step by painful step toward whatever healing lay ahead in Spain.
The Weight of Goodbyes
The fluorescent lights of my office hummed overhead when the call came. I remember how the phone vibrated against the quarterly reports I’d been reviewing, how my colleague’s laughter from the adjacent cubicle suddenly felt galaxies away. ‘Your mother passed peacefully this morning,’ the hospice nurse said, and in that moment, the world acquired a strange, underwater quality – sounds muffled, colors bleeding at the edges.
Six months later, I found myself standing in my father’s walk-in closet, running my fingers over the starched collars of his dress shirts. The cedar scent that had always clung to his clothes now smelled only of mothballs and abandonment. My hands trembled as I folded his favorite blue sweater – the one he wore to my college graduation – into a donation box. The symmetry of their departures felt cruel: first mother to cancer, then father to what I could only describe as a broken heart.
Grief manifests in peculiar ways. There were days I couldn’t remember my WiFi password, but could recall with crystalline clarity the vanilla-cinnamon scent of my mother’s last birthday cake. Nights when I’d wake convinced I’d heard my father’s distinctive knock at 2:17 AM – three quick raps, always three. I started Googling things no one prepares you to search: ‘how long does grief brain fog last’, ‘is it normal to dream about dead parents every night’, and in one particularly low moment, ‘how to stop being sad’ – which returned 2.4 billion results and one sponsored ad for antidepressants.
What the articles and therapists didn’t tell me was that sorrow isn’t something you cure like a headache. It moves into your bones, becomes a permanent tenant in the architecture of your body. I carried mine everywhere – in the supermarket when I instinctively reached for my father’s favorite coffee blend, during movies when a character would call out ‘Mom!’ in that universal tone of childhood need. The weight of all those unfinished conversations, unsaid thank-yous, and unrealized reconciliations pressed against my sternum until I could barely breathe.
That’s when I stumbled upon a forum thread titled ‘Walking the Camino de Santiago After Loss’. User after user described how putting one foot in front of the other for 500 miles had somehow untangled their grief. One post in particular stayed with me: ‘The Pyrenees won’t heal you, but they’ll help you carry the weight differently.’ At 3 AM, bleary-eyed and desperate, I booked a one-way ticket to St. Jean Pied de Port before my rational mind could intervene.
Looking back, I recognize that searching for ‘how to stop being sad’ was the wrong question entirely. The Camino would teach me that grief isn’t an obstacle to overcome, but a landscape to traverse – with blistering uphills and merciful downhills, with unexpected springs of joy in the wilderness of loss. But on that night, surrounded by donation boxes and the ghostly imprint of my parents’ lives, all I knew was that I needed to walk until I could breathe again.
A Ticket to the Pyrenees
The pilgrim’s office in St. Jean Pied de Port smelled of waxed wooden floors and anticipation. Behind the counter, a volunteer with sun-crinkled eyes slid my credential across the counter – the passport that would stamp my journey across Spain. My fingers trembled slightly as I signed my name, the pen suddenly heavy with all the unspoken promises I was making to myself.
‘For your shell,’ the woman said in accented English, pressing a scallop-shaped badge into my palm. The cool metal against my skin startled me. This tiny emblem, traditionally sewn onto pilgrims’ backpacks, felt like both an anchor and a compass needle pointing west. My thumbnail traced its grooves as she explained the first day’s route over the Pyrenees, her finger following the crimson line on the wall-mounted topographic map.
‘Twenty-five kilometers with 1,250 meters ascent,’ she noted matter-of-factly. The elevation profile looked like a cardiogram of a panicked heart – all jagged peaks and vertiginous drops. Outside, morning mist clung to the slate roofs of SJPP, this medieval town that had launched countless footsteps since the 9th century. My own boots, still stiff with newness, tapped nervously on the cobbles.
At the tourism office, I collected a pamphlet with stage-by-stage maps of the Camino Frances. The paper rustled like dried leaves as I unfolded it, revealing the serpentine path I’d attempt tomorrow: from SJPP through Valcarlos to Roncesvalles, the route Charlemagne’s army once marched. The distance seemed abstract until I noticed the tiny church icons marking refuges – each one a potential failure point where I might surrender.
That afternoon, I walked to the 15th-century stone bridge where pilgrims traditionally begin. Standing where the Rue de la Citadelle met the Nive River, I tested my backpack’s weight with experimental bounces. The straps bit into my shoulders with the pleasant ache of impending purpose. Below me, the river chattered over rocks in a language older than the Camino itself.
Back at the guesthouse, I spread my gear across the bed like a pharmacist counting pills. The British sisters knocked, offering to share their blister prevention tricks – moleskin and petroleum jelly passed between us like sacred ointments. We compared packing lists in hushed tones, the street’s twilight hush still honoring the unseen vigil across the way. My shell badge glinted on the nightstand, catching the last amber light through the shutters.
As I lay awake listening to the sisters’ steady breathing, the topographic map burned behind my eyelids. Those contour lines weren’t just representing mountains – they charted the landscape of my grief. The climb would be brutal, but the descent into Spain promised vistas I couldn’t yet imagine. Somewhere beyond the Pyrenees, the meseta’s golden plains waited to receive whatever version of myself emerged from the high passes.
Dawn at the Stone Bridge
The cobblestones glistened with dew as we gathered at the medieval bridge, our breath visible in the crisp Pyrenean air. A chorus of ‘Buen Camino’ rose around us in French, German, Korean—a linguistic tapestry woven by pilgrims from twenty different countries. My fingers fumbled with the sternum strap of my backpack, the nylon webbing still stiff and unyielding from lack of use. The sisters stood nearby, the elder methodically adjusting her sister’s load like a mother sending a child to school.
‘You’ll want these later,’ the younger sister murmured, pressing energy bars into my palm. The foil wrappers crackled in the silence between us, louder than the rushing Nive River below. We didn’t speak of the dying neighbor from last night, nor the unopened sympathy cards I’d left in my suitcase back home. Some griefs are too heavy for words but light enough to carry up mountains.
As we crossed the stone arch, dawn painted the Basque-style houses in liquid gold. My guidebook called this the Napoleon Route—the most demanding first day of any Camino Frances stage, gaining 1,200 meters before descending into Roncesvalles. The pages warned of sudden weather changes, of pilgrims needing rescue helicopters. But just then, watching a Japanese octogenarian stride ahead with her wooden staff, the only storm I feared was the one inside my chest.
We fell into step behind three Belgian women chanting hymns. The rhythm of walking poles against gravel became a metronome for my thoughts. With each uphill switchback, my shoulder straps bit deeper, the weight of my father’s favorite book and mother’s scarf in the pack suddenly absurd. Why had I brought these relics? To prove my love? My guilt? The sisters moved like paired compass needles, always maintaining careful distance yet never losing sight of each other.
At the third kilometer marker, we paused where the path forked. A weathered sign showed two options: the brutal mountain pass or a longer valley route. The elder sister touched the carved wooden shell symbol—the universal marker of the Camino—and said what we all knew: ‘The hard way heals faster.’
As we climbed, the chatter of other pilgrims faded into labored breathing. The Pyrenees revealed themselves in layers—first wild rosemary brushing our ankles, then beech forests whispering overhead, finally jagged ridges cutting the sky. My thighs burned with the effort, but the pain felt clean somehow, unlike the sickly throb of grief that had filled my bones for months.
Near midday, we found the sisters sitting on a boulder, passing a water bottle between them. Without discussion, we shared our meager lunches—Spanish chorizo, waxy cheese, the now-crushed energy bars. The younger sister pointed to a vulture circling lazily above. ‘In Tibet,’ she said between bites, ‘they believe sky burials return loved ones to the universe.’ We watched the bird’s shadow drift across the valley, and for the first time since my mother’s funeral, death didn’t feel like an ending but a transformation.
The final ascent came without warning, the trail narrowing to a goat path along sheer drops. Wind ripped at our clothing, carrying the metallic tang of approaching storms. I focused on the sisters’ footprints in the mud, each impression filling with rainwater as quickly as it formed. Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe. The rhythm became a mantra, the mountain a crucible burning away everything but the essential question: Who was I when stripped of daughterhood?
When we reached the Cruz de Thibault—a simple iron cross marking the highest point—the clouds parted like theater curtains. Sunlight flooded the Spanish plains below, illuminating the yellow arrows that would guide us for the next 790 kilometers. The younger sister pressed her forehead against the cold metal. ‘Our brother loved heights,’ she said. No one replied. Some truths are too bright to look at directly, like the sun after hours of climbing through mist.
That evening in Roncesvalles, as hundreds of pilgrims shuffled into the monastery’s communal showers, I realized my boots had worn two new blisters exactly where my mother’s arthritis used to ache. The coincidence made me smile. Perhaps healing isn’t about forgetting, but learning to carry memories with less pain. As I drifted off to the symphony of snores in the 120-bed dormitory, the last thing I heard was the elder sister whispering, ‘Tomorrow’s stage is shorter.’ A pause. ‘But no easier.’
The Mountain That Answers
The ascent began before dawn. My backpack straps dug into my shoulders with every step, carrying not just supplies but the weight of unspoken goodbyes. At the 800-meter marker, I paused near a crooked pine tree, its branches twisted by mountain winds. This was where I’d promised myself to let go.
Fumbling with the zipper of my waist pouch, I pulled out the creased photograph – Mom and Dad smiling at my graduation, frozen in time. The edges had softened from months of nervous handling. A gust threatened to snatch it from my fingers, and for a wild moment, I imagined it sailing across the valley like some paper ghost. My throat tightened. What kind of daughter throws away her parents’ picture?
‘They’re not in the photo,’ a voice said in heavily accented English. A Spanish shepherd leaned on his staff, coming down the trail in the opposite direction. His woolen poncho smelled of lanolin and woodsmoke. ‘When we walk the Camino backwards, we meet pilgrims running from things instead of toward them.’ He nodded at my trembling hands. ‘The mountains don’t care which way you go. They only ask that you keep moving.’
The truth of his words settled between us. I wasn’t abandoning my parents by releasing this talisman – I was freeing their memory from the prison of my grief. With deliberate slowness, I tucked the photo into a hollow of the pine tree, where some other traveler might find it and understand. The shepherd made the sign of the cross before continuing his descent.
Rain began as I reached the final switchback, icy needles stinging my cheeks. Then, at the exact moment my boots touched the summit ridge, the storm ceased. Not gradually, but all at once, as if someone had flipped a celestial switch. Sunlight broke through the clouds, illuminating the Spanish plains stretching endlessly below. My damp clothes steamed in the sudden warmth.
In that suspended moment, I finally grasped what the British sisters had tried to explain during our night in SJPP. The Camino doesn’t erase pain – it gives you stronger shoulders to carry it. As I drank from my water bottle, the liquid tasted different, sweeter somehow. Or perhaps it was just that my tongue had forgotten how to recognize anything but bitterness until now.
Below in the valley, the next village’s church bell tolled midday. The sound carried upward, clear and bright, a reminder that somewhere down there were hot meals and dry socks and strangers who would soon become confessors. I adjusted my pack, feeling its weight redistribute in a way that no longer ached. The photograph remained behind, but for the first time in eighteen months, so did the crushing certainty that joy had died with my parents.
The mountain had given its answer: keep walking.
The Last Supper at Roncesvalles
The communal dining hall in Roncesvalles smelled of garlic soup and damp wool. Forty-seven pilgrims sat shoulder-to-shoulder at long wooden tables, their first-day blisters gleaming under the yellow light of iron chandeliers. The British sisters flanked me – the younger one methodically buttering bread, the elder rubbing arnica gel into her ankles. Across the table, a German man showed photos of his daughter on his phone to a Korean grandmother who nodded without understanding the words but understood everything.
‘We made it,’ I said, staring at my bowl where the broth reflected my sunburnt nose. The climb over the Pyrenees had taken us 8 hours and 15 kilometers, ascending 1,300 meters only to descend 500 on the other side. My thighs still vibrated with the memory of the descent through the beech forests, where the path became a river of loose stones.
The elder sister tapped her spoon against her water glass – the same gesture I’d seen her use when comforting her sibling yesterday. ‘Tomorrow’s stage is shorter,’ she announced to our table of twelve, ‘but no easier.’ A Dutch cyclist groaned while a Canadian priest chuckled into his wine. The paradox of the Camino revealed itself again: the physical distance mattered less than the emotional weight you carried between waymarks.
Later, in the medieval monastery’s courtyard, we watched pilgrims hang washed socks on rosemary bushes. The sisters taught me their family’s tradition – writing worries on bay leaves before burning them. As the smoke curled upward, I realized my backpack no longer dug into my shoulders with quite the same vengeance. The mountains hadn’t gotten smaller, but something in me had shifted during those hours of putting one foot in front of the other, following yellow arrows through the fog.
Back in the dormitory, I sat on my bottom bunk examining tomorrow’s route on the map. The paper rustled as the younger sister handed me an extra knee brace from her stash. ‘For the descent into Zubiri,’ she said. ‘The Roman bridge is slippery even when dry.’ Her matter-of-fact kindness reminded me of how my mother used to pack my school lunches with notes tucked between the apple and sandwich.
That night, the dormitory echoed with snores in seven different languages. I lay awake thinking about the house in St. Jean Pied de Port with the closed shutters. Death had seemed so present that first night, but here in Roncesvalles, with forty-six strangers breathing around me, life felt insistent and sprawling. The Camino was working its ancient magic – not by erasing grief, but by making room for it alongside everything else.
At dawn, I laced my boots for Day 2, and for the first time, they felt lighter.
