๐ง๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ป๐ฑ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐๐ต, ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ถ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฟ๐ฒ
Before I walked the Camino Inglรฉs from Ferrol to Santiago de
Compostela, I learned about a tradition that touched me deeply.
Pilgrims sometimes carry an object with personal meaning in
their backpack—a rock, a seashell, a bracelet, a photograph, or another small
memento representing something they are carrying emotionally. Somewhere along
the Camino, they leave that object behind.
The symbolism is simple and powerful: You lay down your burden and continue walking.
For me, I decided to carry a rock.
Before leaving Puerto Vallarta, I walked along Playa Los Muertos looking
for a heart-shaped stone—preferably one that looked like a broken heart. It
would represent the load I carried, trying to be a caregiver for my husband
with Parkinson’s disease, from afar.
He had moved out of our home over a year ago, yet still asked for my help at times. He wanted to live independently, but sometimes struggled with decision-making, especially regarding meals. I was grappling with being a caregiver from a mile away and still allowing him the freedom he wanted.
As I walked the beach, I found a small, multicolored reddish rock with dark veins
running through it. It was roughly heart-shaped. Close enough.
When I got home, it dried and turned an ugly orange. I
considered going back to the beach to find a better one. A prettier one. A perfect
one.
Then I caught myself. No one would see this rock but me. It
wasn't supposed to be perfect. It was a symbol.
I rinsed the salt off, and as it got wet, something
magical happened. It turned red again.
I watched it dry and change back to its homely orange color.
I smiled. It was perfect after all—a little reminder that things can look
completely different depending on how we see them.
I packed it in my new red backpack.
And then I carried that little broken-heart rock more than 120
kilometers across northern Spain, from Ferrol to Santiago de Compostela.
I saw stones, seashells, and Camino bracelets
piled on top of the granite kilometer markers along the trail. But those places
didn't feel right for me.
One day I stood on a hill overlooking farmland and forests and thought about how much my husband had always loved building homes on hills with a view. Should I leave it here?
But I realized this wasn't about Jon.
It was about me.
So I kept walking. I knew I would recognize the right place when I found it. And if I didn't, I would carry the rock home.
Or perhaps throw it into a river or stream somewhere in Galicia. Maybe into the Eume River Estuary in Pontedeume on my 70th birthday? Water has always been my happy place.
I looked for the right place to lay down my heart-shaped rock every day during the eleven days of walking my Camino Tranquilo, my slow Camino. I didn’t feel any place was right for laying down my burden.
When I arrived at the Cathedral de Santiago, still carrying my broken-heart stone, I thought about leaving it somewhere in the plaza. I walked around the majestic cathedral several times over the next few days, and nothing felt right. With so many pilgrims and tourists visiting the popular resting place of St. James, nowhere was private enough for my personal ritual.
Then, on my last day in Spain, I traveled by bus to Finisterre—the “end of
the earth.”
There I stood before the intensely blue, almost cerulean Atlantic
Ocean, watching waves crash against enormous granite boulders.
And then I saw it.
A tall granite cross, perhaps ten feet high, standing on a pedestal atop
a massive boulder. Around its base were stones, seashells, notes,
and other small mementos left by pilgrims.
This was one of the places where pilgrims traditionally leave something
behind, to symbolically release their burdens and troubles.
I thought, Is this where I should leave my rock? But somehow, it didn't feel right.
I wandered away from the crowds and climbed onto an enormous granite
boulder overlooking the ocean.
I sat alone in the sunshine, listening to the waves crashing far below.
And suddenly I knew. I pulled my little rock from my backpack.
In the bright sunlight, it looked even homelier than I remembered—orange with gray veins running through it. I placed it in a bed of greenish-gray lichen on the giant granite boulder.
It looked incredibly small and insignificant against the enormous stone
beneath it.
Then I had an idea. I took out my water bottle and poured a few drops
over the rock. It began to turn red.
I poured a little more. The color deepened.
A few more drops, and a tiny stream of water trickled down the side of
the boulder.
It looked as though my broken heart was crying.
And in that moment, I was ready. I left the rock at Finisterre.
For me, it represented letting go of my need to control someone I love.
Letting go of the constant worry. Letting go of the belief that I could somehow
make another person's choices better.
I could still love.
I could still help.
I could still offer suggestions.
But I didn't have to control.
I walked away feeling lighter.
The Camino didn't magically solve anything. The hard work was still ahead
of me.
The real journey would be learning to become more patient, more
compassionate, and gentler with myself—and with the person I love.
I had walked more than 120 kilometers carrying that little rock.
But somewhere at the end of the earth, I finally realized that I
didn't have to carry it anymore.
Maybe that's what the Camino does.
Sometimes we walk hundreds of kilometers to discover that the burden we
have been carrying was never meant to come all the way home with us.
Ultreรฏa.
Onward. ๐❤️
My experience on the Camino also brought me back to a theme I explore in my novel Mexico For Better or For Worse: the emotional burden of loving and caring for someone with Parkinson’s disease. In the third novel of the series, Jake and Lindsay face advancing Parkinson’s, suspected dementia, medication challenges, and the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic while trying to hold onto their life in Mexico. Their story is fictional, but many of the emotions surrounding love, caregiving, and letting go come from real-life experience.
Mexico For Better or For Worse: A Novel
In Sickness and In Health #3
By Terry L Turrell (Author)
Book 3 of 3: In Sickness and In Health
In the third novel of this riveting series, a couple faces insurmountable odds, battling advancing Parkinson’s disease, access to medication, and other healthcare challenges in Mexico while the world is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic.
Jake and Lindsay fell in love with Sayulita, Mexico. As long-time partners, lovers, and best friends, they have endured Jake’s illnesses, bipolar disorder, shifting from manic phases to depression, and Parkinson's disease over the past few years. But now, a new unpredictable catastrophe has turned their world upside down.
Read more and download or order the book from Amazon at: Mexico For Better or For Worse: A Novel
