Plus ca change, plus c´est la meme chose...

And what I mean by today´s title is that I´m realising how easy it would be to begin every single entry with the words ¨This is SO hard!¨ I have now walked more than half-way and have realised that every step of that more than four hundred kilometres has been in pain - always physical and very often mental and emotional too. I was very moved to read the comment by Steve Marshall, whose name I recognised at once from the Leukaemia Foundation - when I first planned walking the Camino (it was this time last year that Mark and I had the article on the Camino pinned up in his hospital room), I thought about making it a fund-raiser for the Leukaemia Foundation - but knew that I didn´t have the mental energy to go about organising sponsorship. But at some point, I will make what contribution I can to raising awareness of the Foundation, whose support, so generously given, was so integral to Mark´s well-being.

This time last year we were preparing for Mark´s bone marrow transplant - twice delayed, firstly because of an infection and then because he hadn´t taken a course of some tablet or other. I´ve carried the stones over these past two days for everyone going through the transplants, for their families and for their donors. We were so fortunate that Mark´s sister Anne was a very good match (and I think his brother Paul was too) - but there are others, like Pam, for whom an unrelated match must be found. I remember the fear around those days, having been told that the leukaemia had relapsed and was particularly aggressive, knowing the risks of the transplant for someone of Mark´s age, and knowing that it was his only hope. I remember Anne, whom I have never known to complain or make a fuss about anything, commenting that she had felt ´flat´after the stem cell extraction, and how she had realised that this was how Mark must feel all of the time. I remember how in the weeks after the transplant, Mark turned into an old man in the hospital bed, his voice feeble and scratchy, his mind wandering, and his fingers pumping the medication for the constant pain. Then the slow but marked recovery as engraftment took place - but an unexpected and great weariness, the only point in the whole illness where I heard Mark talk of giving up - where he lay curled up in the bed, refused to try to eat anything and became quite grumpy if asked to take medication. And then Shane, the nurse, persuaded him to get into a wheelchair so that I could take him out into the Botanic Gardens and suddenly he lifted his head to the trees, squared his shoulders and took in a deep breath (and gave me curt instructions on my wheelchair pushing!).

I´ve been really tearful these past days and could not understand it - but I think it is because of another milestone being remembered. It´s really strange - there are times when I just want to give up and I keep telling myself that I have had enough of this punishing routine of very early mornings, hours of walking in pain, climbing steep slopes, tramping through thick dung-filled mud or slipping on small sharp stones; that I can´t continue clambering onto rickety top bunks when my feet are sore, for an uneasy sleep broken by snorers and late-comers - but the more I do this, the more it makes me realise what Mark may have gone through and how much courage he showed in simply facing each day one step at a time.

One factor has been that I´ve not had the time alone that I probably needed. Walking with Anne and Nefy was very good but it meant that I couldn´t just walk and cry as I had been doing. Yesterday, however, I said goodbye to Anne. Nefy headed back to Paris on the train, and Anne took the bus to Fr Ernesto´s former parish in the High Pyrenees.  I almost went with her, but finally decided that it really was her journey rather than mine. Anne is a person of great wisdom and her insights often helped me. She is also the person who turned to me one day and said ¨You know, I think Mark must have been a very patient man. You worry too much.¨ Which is exactly what he would say to me!

I´ve also been beginning and often ending the day with Yvette and Gilbert, the middle-aged French couple, but it´s been harder and harder, again because I need time alone. Gilbert is a relatively quiet and thoughtful man (elements of Mark). but Yvette is like a bright-eyed exciteable French poodle - she is such a kind person, but from the moment her eyes open in the morning, she is constantly exclaiming at everything in view. A walk with her is one punctuated by a succession of high-pitched cries of Öoh! and Ahh! and Ooh la la!, and a stream of commentary on whether or not there are Camino arrows, what a pretty house that is, have we seen the sea how beautiful it is this morning, there are lots of flies, pay attention that they don´t bite, - on and on and on! And she asks whether I am eating enough (I have actually lost some weight, I know, because my trousers keep falling down!), whether I have put on sun cream, whether the limp has got worse etc etc. So today I decided that whatever else happened, I would not end up in the same albergue.

A gift in companionship, however - a young couple I met last night at the albergue, Benoit and Agnes. The hospitalier had put me on a top bunk in a room with them - and I had reached the point where I was really struggling to climb to the top (the bunks don´t have ladders, so it is rather a feat - especially when the soles of your feet are sore). Benoit and Agnes were resting next to each other (two bunk beds pushed close together - believe me, they know how to pack these bunk beds into a room). Agnes explained that they were on their honeymoon and had chosen to walk the Camino together. She too had injured herself but Benoit insisted that I took his place on the bottom bunk and he would climb up. Later on (only because they asked), I told them the story of Mark - and because of tiredness, pain, worry etc, probably got a bit emotional (not overboard - but enough that I knew I had to go for a walk (or hobble) by myself for a while. Anyway, today, I met them on the road and they asked if they could walk with me for a while. And it was really special. Agnes told me about a book she had read (shortly before marrying Benoit!) about grieving, the title of which she is going to send to me (written by an American). We talked a lot about faith and hope - she is an Italian Catholic and Benoit is a French Protestant, they met when they were both volunteers in one of the L´Arche communities in France (working with mentally and physically impaired). Like the walk with Paul the other day, or Olivier, they are the conversations with people whom you may never meet again but with whom you make a really deep connection.

I don´t know that I had time the other day to write fully about Olivier (whose father died after five days in a coma with an aneurism last year). Besides our sharing about faith, anger with God and the desperate search for some kind of meaning, he also talked a great deal about how he and his brothers had drawn closer together but how they felt overwhelmed by their mother´s grief. Listening to him, I thought about Savvas and Maria and the fact that I will share depths of pain with complete strangers but I am so frightened to show the full extent of this gut-tearing pain to my children. I think it´s because there is a feeling that nothing will ever be the same again, that once the pain opens, it will never come to an end and it´s too awful to look at. Sometimes I feel like a small child. I want things to go back to how they were before Mark was ill. Mostly there´s just a repeated cry inside ¨I just want Mark! I just want Mark!¨ And I´m still clinging to those glimpses of men who look like him and give him back to me for a brief moment, like a man at the cafe where I stopped for a coffee today - I kept looking at his ear, thinking how much it was like Mark´s beautiful neat ear. Stupid.

The good news is that tonight the albergue was full - and I decided the time has come to invest in a night in a one star hotel - which means a room by myself with not just a shower but one of those half-bath things - I have already soaked my feet and am looking forward to taking a shower that doesn´t involve holding a plastic curtain with one hand to protect my limited modesty as some burly Spanish male trots into a neighbouring toilet cubicle and treats me to a bottom symphony (and do you realise how many men DON´T WASH THEIR HANDS AFTER GOING TO THE TOILET???!!!!)

Fr Ernesto told us the other day that the Camino de Frances is an ¨auto-piste¨ (I think that means that you basically walk from one albergue to the next and everything works pretty smoothly - and I´m sure that´s not true!) whereas the Camino del Norte is for ¨intelligent and creative people¨ (his words, not mine!!!) because it´s so difficult sometimes to work out the route and to find somewhere to stay. This next section might be a bit tricky (I cannot understand why several albergues decide to close their doors now - for the holidays!) - but I know I´ll make it. Again, I can´t stress enough how much it means to me knowing that others are praying for me and thinking of me.

Today is St Monica´s day (one of my favourite saints - Savvas, you work out why!).