August 1 2025 - A month before…

Today is exactly one month away from the start of our journey to do the Camino de Santiago.

I thought I would start with my “why” for doing this. I lost my beautiful Mom not too long ago and the grieving process has been rough. We had been planning to do this Camino for a very long time and I always knew my first reason for doing this was to give thanks for both of my amazing parents. That is still the case, but it has taken on more meaning since Mom has gone. I really want to honor her and spread love the way she did. I want to smile at fellow pilgrims and make them feel loved immediately. I want to walk 500 miles because she couldn’t. More than anything, I want to feel her presence, walking beside me because I know that is the only way that I will be able to complete the journey. My hope is that by doing this Camino I will come out on the other side of grief, where I will no longer be consumed by profound sadness and longing to be with her. Right now, this grief is all encompassing and I don’t see a way out of it. I hope I will be able to find a way to move forward and live a life that would make her proud.

My sister in law, Gina, gave me a grief meditation book. The entry for today opened with this quote:

“One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don’t leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.”

-Osho

I’ll end this post with one of the first pictures of me with my beautiful Mom and one of the last.