The joy and sorrow of ending our journey, the beautiful cathedral standing before us, the exhaustion and weariness and the layers of pain mixed with just as many layers of relief, it all welled up in us as we stood there quietly in the midday sun.
We stood and looked at the long flight of stairs leading up to the Cathedral, our last sacred steps of the Camino. Should we start the climb? Are we ready? Can we even make the climb? What are we supposed to do first?
I looked at Elaine, she had an expression on her face that I couldn’t identify. All of her emotions were completely exposed; joy, fear, sadness, relief. She just stood there, looking up at the spires in the bright blue sky.
I looked down at our clothes. They were wet and dirty, our shoes covered in mud. I remembered something Elaine had told me over a month ago. There’s a luxury Parador Hotel somewhere on this huge central square. Looking around for several seconds, I spotted a uniformed man unloading luggage out of the back of a large car on the far side of the plaza. I spoke so softly I’m surprised Elaine even heard me. “Darling, there’s the Parador over there.” She pulled her eyes from the Cathedral and looked over at the historic building. “Would you mind if we checked into a hotel and cleaned up a bit? It’s too late for the noon Pilgrims’ Mass. Why don’t we complete our pilgrimage in the morning after we’re clean and rested?”
My words seemed to bring Elaine back to the present. She looked at me with such love in her eyes. I’d found an angel and somehow she’d decided she was going to spend the rest of her days on Earth with me.
She smiled, saying, “Let’s be pilgrims for one more night.”