For Whom the Bell Tolls

Holding my Compostela, safe in its tube

   I write today from Santiago - finally found a bar with a computer.  Last Friday as I continued to get closer to Santiago de Compostela I heard a church bell tolling in the distance - someone had died.  I would not have known this, but the night before I heard a slow mournful tolling of the bell from the church in the little village where I was staying.  It would ring low twice, then a high, minor bell.  Low...      Low...   Higher...  Over and over for about 1-2 hour, very, very slowly.  It drew me to the church - but just as I arrived the tolling stopped.  When I walked into the church a young man came down from the balcony and though he spoke in Spanish I knew he was telling me that I needed to leave.  Sure enough, as I was walking past the graves in the cemetery outside the church I saw a car arrive, then another, and another.  The tolling was calling mourners to gather for a funeral.

   So as I walked on Friday I heard this bell in the distance ringing for over 45 minutes.  It did not have the low, low, high, but rather just one bell, over and over, and again... very slowly.  I wondered if it was calling people to a  funeral.  It was around noontime and I thought that was an odd time in Spain to schedule something.  It also went on for such a long time...  I started to wonder if it was just acknowledging that someone had died, or maybe it was a special person in the community?

   So as I was walking I was thinking about death.  I remember about 7 or 8 months before my dad died he told me he´d had a dream.  He walked into a room and the lights were low, but when his eyes adjusted he saw his brothers John and Roy (both deceased).  He looked around and then saw his dad and others.  Then he woke up just as his mother entered the room.  I asked him how it felt to be in that room.  He said "It was good."
   I don´t know what heaven or eternal life is like.  We certainly like to think that we will see our loved ones once again.  But it occurred to me that on Sunday when I enter Santiago I will experience a bit of heaven.  I was thinking, really hoping, that I would see people I have not see for a long time in my walking - people who were important to me on this Camino.  I had a preview of that on Friday night.  I was staying in Arzua and had just asked at the tourist kiosk how to get to the church.  As I walked down the street I glanced to my right and there was Leif (from Sweden) with some woman I didn´t recognize.  I hadn´t seen Leif and his wife Karin for at least two weeks or more.  I immediately crossed the street and we joyfully greeted one another.  He was having a glass of wine with Margit from Finland - another friend of theirs who they had not seen for sometime until that night.  So he took both of us back to their room in a hostel to see Karin who had been taking a nap (she had an encounter with many bedbugs and had an allergic reaction and the med made her sleepy). 
    We had a joyful reunion then went out to dinner together (and this time exchanged email addresses before separating again).  It was wonderful.  This lovely couple and I had been the only ones at a new alberque weeks earlier and had shared a dinner together that night.  We then saw each other twice again as we were visiting churches, then they disappeared.  I started to wonder who else I would get to see again.

    Saturday I walked 19 miles.  The guide suggested stopping in Arco but I arrived there at noon - to early to even go to the alberque.  I kept walking.  I stopped in a field and spread my poncho and ate cheese and bread.  Walked more.   Stopped again when I saw a woman sitting on a stone bridge with a lovely river underneath and nice shade.  She was  from Austria but now lives in Sacramento CA.  Soon Jean came by, from Los Angeles CA.   We talked about how unusual to have three people from the states together on the camino.

   Jean and I continued to walk together the rest of the afternoon.  It was hot and we kept looking for a place to stay.  In Lavacolla there is an airport so we checked at one of the hotels along the Camino.  They told us "NO ROOMS!"   We continued walking and when we saw a little bar in Vilamaior we decided to take a break - but wait!  There was a sign that they had rooms.  Jean and I shared a room that night, then the next morning we walked the final 7 miles into Santiago.

    There have been some reunions, but also there are those I have missed.  I never saw Cathy from Canda (who shares a birthday with me).  I know she had to leave October 3, so she is gone.  I will never see her again, but I share the memory of a lovely day walking with her as we went through Pamplona then headed up a mountain.   I didn´t think to say good-bye way back when - I didn´t realize we´d never see each other again.

A medieval festival is in Santiago the day we arrive

   So now that the Camino is over and I´m making the transition to prepare to return home.  Today I went to the end of the world.  I have some thoughts about that - I hope to share tomorrow.  (By the way, I think the last computer I used not only would not upload my pictures, but fried my adapter- hopefully I can add more when I get home).  Until then, Bueno Camino!

Having coffee with Jean and Ann Marie