osodecanela | Camino de Santiago.......

There's a pilgrimage in Spain a number of folks I know have made in the past couple of years. One man, a patient of mine made the journey this past fall. His recount left me rather suddenly in tears yesterday.

He, his wife and two children made the trek in September walking som 140 Km together. Their boy, just 5, occasionally resorted to his stroller, but mostly hiked. It's my patient's second marriage.

He also carried his daughter with him. This is the child from his first marriage, the one he lost at 16 two years ago in an accident. He brought the urn with her ashes, to make the pilgrimage with them. He carried her in his pack every step of the trip.

I found I couldn't stop my tears. I sat and cried with him two years ago, aching then from his pain, an ache no parent should ever know. That he had the ability to channel his grief this way, to take her ashes with him for this pilgrimage touched my heart in a way I hadn't expected. He talked to her as he walked, saying many of the things he needed to say, trying to close unfinished business with her, expressing both the love and the pain he still holds.

And as my tears quietly streamed down my cheek to disappear into my beard, he laid his hand on my forearm and reminded me of my words to him two years ago. "Share your joy and it's multiplied, share your pain and it's divided." He then placed his hand over center of his chest.

This trip he did just that. He talked. To her. With her.

And it brought him much of the solace he needed. As I lie here this morning and think about his face, and the clear peace I saw there when his hand rested back upon his chest, I cannot help but remember another lyric; "....you'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart."