A little background of how I got to where I am now....

Gandalf: You'll have a tale or two to tell of your own when you come back.

Bilbo: Can you promise that I will come back?

Gandalf: No. And if you do, you'll not be the same.

-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

If, as the inspirational poster says, the journey truly is the destination, I have spent the past three years on a heck of a trail.  Lots of hills and valleys to start, but ending up with more flat, shaded trails of late. By all accounts, 2011 was my annus horribilis (which, contrary to some, is not Latin for “burning prostate”).  It all started by the end of my marriage of nearly 15 years right before Christmas of 2010.  I started my new life as a single dad right after the new year and the house went down to myself, the Starlord and our two yorkies, Bronte and Tolkien (oddly enough, the dishes and laundry didn’t seem to change much).  Divorce was uncontested and quickly finalized in March.   Like my family had learned to do many times with Joel’s illness, I redefined “good” daily until things got down to a new concept of normal.  Then, in June on the last day for teachers, I was told that I was being moved from my school of 12 years to a K-8 school.  While this turned out to be a huge blessing for me both personally and professionally, at the time it was a blow to my already-fragile ego and comfort zone.  A few months later, thirteen year old Tolkien had to be put to sleep.  I didn’t want anyone to be there with us, so it was just Tolkien and I in that room when he finally found rest.  The void in my heart was matched in the house, and the Starlord and Bronte had as much of a hard time with Tolkien’s absence as I did. 

In the fall of 2011, Joel started getting sicker and was regressing.  Not long after the start of school, serving in my first year as Assistant Principal of Lewis School, I was already having to talk to my principal about being gone to spend time with Joel because it was already clear that we were coming to the end of his journey, and like with Tolkien, I wasn’t going to miss out and I wanted to be there.  As with my previous principals, I was blessed to have a boss who not only understood, but expected me to spend time with my brother despite the hardship it caused for he and the staff in my absence.  Joel went into the hospital in Tallahassee around Christmas, and came out to move home with my parents in January.  Friends and family came to visit and spend time with him almost weekly, because we all knew that after 19 years of living despite rather than with cancer, the end was in sight.  I tried to spend as much time as I could with Joel, but always felt guilty when I was away, either by necessity or for a break.  In late January, Bronte got sicker and sicker, and I went with her to let the vet end her journey mercifully.  The next day, with the Hospice nurse and I in the room, Joel ended his journey as well.  I had friends and family available to me, but from the moment Joel passed away I started running.  My marriage, my first school family, my dogs and now my only sibling and best friend were all gone in thirteen months.  I needed to be alone, to have some time.  The week after the funeral, I was in Pensacola sitting for my doctoral prelims, and then the escaping started.  Over the next months and year my journey became hard going, more uphill than down, carrying a lot of sadness and self-pity on my back (and I learned way too slowly that self-pity weighs a lot more than sadness), and with very little positive in sight.  It would take a long time before I started to see the sunlight that was there the whole time.

A little more than a year after Joel passed away, two of my friends and I decided to take a trip to England and Ireland in his honor; the trip that Joel and I had talked about taking while he was in the hospital.  It was one of those things that he and I enjoyed planning with the false honesty of people who are sincere but choose to ignore the futility of the idea in order for the discussion to exist at all.  A year later, as my two friends and I planned the trip and then followed through, we knew that this trip was more than a vacation…it was a pilgrimage of sorts, with an importance born from the missing fourth member of our group.  We were traveling WITH Joel as much as we were travelling FOR him, and it made the experience sweeter and deeper for each of us.

We started planning a second trip in 2014, partially to recapture some of the experiences of that first trip, and also to take two other friends who were not able to go with us the first time.  While this trip was less about Joel, there was enough there that tied together, and we agreed that it was a trip that we would have been taking with him as well.  We did other things that he would have liked, and there wasn't a day in which at least one of us didn't comment that Joel would have liked or disliked something as much as we did.  Towards the end of the 2014 England trip, the door for a third and final trip opened.

A year or two before Joel died, I had discovered an independent film called The Way that was due for limited release around the country.  Written and directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father Martin Sheen, the film was based around the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage made daily to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of St. James are kept.  Depending on where they start, pilgrims walk for 5 to 30 days or more (depending upon their starting location) to reach the cathedral, carrying a pilgrim passport (or credential) to get stamps along the way proving their trip.  At the end, the passport is shown and a Compostela (certificate) is presented as proof of the Camino being completed.  The movie was very well done, and although sad at times, was overall positive and spoke to me in a way that I still cannot fully explain.  When it came out on DVD, I bought copies for my parents and friends, and nagged them to watch it.  I also bought a copy for Joel, but we all agreed that at that point, it would be better if he didn’t watch anything that dealt with death or sadness, so I regret that he never saw it with me.

Although I never envisioned a time where I would be able to take a pilgrimage, I started reading more and more about the Camino, what it meant to people and what it took to take part.  It was after the first trip to England that I discovered that there was a shorter Camino route traditionally used by English, Irish and Scandinavian pilgrims.  They would land on the coast at either Ferrol or A Coruna and walk 75-100 km to Santiago.  This was a roughly five day walk and was much more realistic.  The idea of actually taking part in the Camino started to take shape.  It was then that other signs started pointing me towards this hitherto unrealistic goal.  While planning for our 2014 trip back to England and Ireland, I discovered that not only was there an Irish credential available, but that Irish pilgrims would gather at St. James’ Gate in Dublin before leaving – the location of the Guinness Storehouse.  In fact, the Storehouse still stamps the credentials for pilgrims to this day.  Before leaving Dublin, I met with Betty, a pilgrim who sold me a credential and told me about the stamps at Guinness.  A few hours later, we were browsing a small used book store and I found myself glancing through the tiny travel section.  The first book my eyes laid on was on the Camino.  Shocked, I took a picture and kept looking.  A shelf down, there was a second book on the Camino.  This one I purchased.  An hour or so later at the Guinness Storehouse, we had both our pilgrim and US passports stamped.  My Camino had officially started.

A month later, firm in the idea that I would try to complete the Camino as a third and final trip for Joel and I, other signs made themselves plain.  Mentioning to my mom that I was having a hard time finding nice scallop shells (the symbol of the Camino pilgrim) to wear on the trip, she took me into the garage and a jar full of scallop shells that she, dad and Joel and found over the years.  Mom would paint the Santiago cross on each for me, so she, dad and Joel were all part of the trip now…but Joel was not done pointing me towards northern Spain just yet.

I was still in poor physical shape, and even with a shorter distance, 100 Km is the same as a 1000 Km to an out of shape asthmatic.  I needed to get used to exercise and I desperately needed to lose weight.  Out of the blue, a college friend called to tell me about his recent weight loss success and offered to take a week away from work to stay at my house and show me how to prepare meals to lead to losing some of my body weight.  Unknowingly, my friend was helping me with my Camino at the right time.

A trip to Tallahassee a few weeks later to find and get fitted for a backpack (at the excellent Trail and Ski) led to an out of the blue conversation about the Camino from JC, the owner.  And then, before I left, a customer came in and started talking with me about his upcoming Camino.  Signs were coming all over.  Billy Joel’s song “Traveler’s Prayer” was on the radio nearly every day, and everywhere I found reminders and prodding.

Then, while talking to my mom (who was still not thrilled about me traveling alone to Galicia) about the St. James crosses I was wanting her to paint on each of the shells, I had a sudden moment of pause.  Remembering the cross around my neck that Joel had bought for me a year or two before his death, I jumped online to look it up.  It should have been no surprise for me to learn that the cross my brother had bought for me those years ago was the St. James cross, and I had been wearing it the whole time without realizing the significance to the pilgrimage.  My Camino had started before I even realized it, and any question or doubt about my need to make the trip disappeared.  I don’t necessarily believe in signs or portents all of the time, but I’m also not too arrogant to ignore the obvious and evident.  I bought plane tickets to Spain the next day.

So, my Camino is coming together and my journey is definitely the destination.  It’s a scary proposition, traveling in a country where I don’t speak the language, walking after years of being sedentary…but I have lost weight, been training...and I know that I won’t be alone.  Joel’s been with me the whole time, and there are many people and situations going into this trip for me.  As Gandalf said to Bilbo, not only do I think I will be a different person when I return; I’m betting on it.