The last night before Santiago was one of anticipation. We stopped in at town called Arco that night with about 20km left to Santiago. We planned to wake up at 3:30am and out by 4am to make sure we got to Santiago by 9am. It was Sunday the next day, and mass was at noon. So despite the heat, it being light outside still, and everyone out and about, I tried to go to sleep at 7pm. It didn't work. I estimated I got about two hours of sleep by the time my alarm went off at 3:30. Walking in the dark we walked through Arco and into a Eucalyptus forest. I had the thought of how beautiful it all was conflicting with how stupidly tired I was as I laid my head back on my backpack and tried to sleep walk. I could sense Adilene's urgency as she walked and kept looking behind as if telling me to hurry up. If you know me well at all, you know how much I am not someone who deals well with lack of sleep. I could have punched her in the face every time I felt her looking at me.
But there was about half an hour of awakeness from 4:20 to 4:40 in which I couldn't help but sing to myself as I looked at the stars a worship song that goes "Tonight the starts speak of your infinite love, and it serves to remind me that what I have means nothing at all compared to your glory, oh Lord." And as I look back, I think that is what the Camino has taught me - that what I have means nothing at all because God's infinite love doesn't care. The best part is about me singing this song is that usually the song is a grieving song for me because the chorus reads, "How long until your voice speaks clearly? How long till your arms envelope me? I cry: be my strength when I am weak. Oh Lord, have mercy on me please." But those lyrics didn't fit any more (except for maybe the "have mercy on me" for my angry thoughts every time I saw Adilene look back at me). During the entire Camino, I felt God's arms enveloping me- through all of the crosses we walked by each day, through meeting new friends and laughing about our pain and others' pain or just life, through our French parents, through Jael and Adilene at times, through my actual parents thousands of miles away. I was never alone on the Camino. I was never crying "be my strength," because God was already providing it before I even could think it.
By the time the sun rose fully we were only 4.7km away from Santiago and a small cafe was open. We stopped for 20 minutes and I was able to get a tiny cafe con leche and change my socks. I finally felt awake (meaning I finally walked fast enough to keep Adilene from annoying me). As we saw the first signs of the Cathedral, we past am older Yorkshire couple we had met a couple weeks earlier. We said hello, the husband made s joke we didn't quite catch, and we hurried on by. As we entered the square in front of the cathedral, I felt as if I were dreaming. Thirty three days of wandering around Spain, and now it's over. And then we turned and saw our French mom and dad hugging each other and crying. They had started from Le Puy, France - walking so much farther than us. We waited a little before walking about to her, not wanting to interrupt their moment. But as soon as she saw us, she embraced us calling us her girls/ daughters in French. We took a few pictures with them, and I was able to tell her that my feet were completely healed. After we saw them in Leon, almost two weeks before that, I thought we would never see them again. She had told us then that she would see us beautiful and healed in Santiago. I think we were more sweaty than beautiful, but I was definitely healed.
