Dispatches Del Camino

It was a little church. Off the main path. And you don’t see many “little” churches on the Camino. Most churches here are Gothic monuments. Stone gargantuans, with bells, towering medieval doors, and golden altars.

This wasn’t one of those. This was a small stone chapel, squatting by the roadside. It looked more like an old barn than a church. There were a few pilgrims inside. There was a nun by the door, smiling at visitors.

I crossed myself and took a pew.

After 8 hours of daily walking beneath a Spanish sun, you learn to love churches on a more human level; to appreciate them for exactly what they are. Shelter.

I sit before the altarpiece. I bow my head.

Ironically, at this exact moment I am here, Pope Francis’s funeral is taking place, somewhere a million miles from this dusty pueblo.

There are pilgrims on the trail who are watching the funeral via cellphone because this is a major world event. At the Vatican, there are kings, queens and presidents in attendance. There are 130 national delegations, 50 heads of state, and 4,000 journalists from around the world, scrupulously covering the event so they may report to you internationally important details such as, which outfits everyone wore.

But these little nuns are not in Vatican City. They are here, in the tranquil village of Rabé de las Calzadas. And they are focused on the here and now.

And right now, there is a goofy American sitting in their pew. A pilgrim. Me.

I am dirty, weathered, and I don’t smell good because nobody smells good after walking for eight hours. I am staring at the altar and thinking about why I’m here.

Why.

Because I am the same age my father was when he took his own life. I was 11. The night before his death, he tried to kill my mother. He held my sister and I hostage until the sheriff’s department arrived with riot guns and subdued him. My last image of my father was his arrest.

Why.

Because my life went to hell during boyhood. My subsequent childhood was a wreck. I dropped out of school. We never knew my father’s family. I barely met my grandparents. I did not know my uncles or aunts or cousins.

Why.

Because we struggled when I was a kid. Because I have spent the majority of my life with moderate mental illness, grappling with depression until my 20s. I had night terrors until I was 30. My festering youth was not pretty, it was embarrassing—it still humiliates me.

Sometimes, I grieve for the little boy I used to be. Sometimes, I want to put that tragic little boy to rest, and let him lie in peace, alongside the remains of my father’s Great Mistake. I’m not that little boy anymore. I am me. And I just want to be free.

The small nun hobbles to me. She is elderly, and walks with toddling steps. She wears a simple habit with a black veil, and practical shoes.

The sister doesn’t expect a dorky American pilgrim like me to speak Spanish, so she is pleased when she learns I understand her foreign words.

“Do you need prayer, mijo?” she says.

I tell her, yes, I think I would like someone to pray for me.

“Do you suffer?” she asks.

I pause.

I’ve never thought about it in those words per se. But, yes, I tell her, I suffer. I guess.

I am not prepared for her to move inward and embrace me the way she does. I am not prepared for a tiny Spanish woman to grasp my face in both hands and press her forehead against mine. I can feel the bone of her brow against my own.

She holds me like this for a few moments without speaking. Two foreheads pressed together.

Soon, I am crying like a teenage girl. Other pilgrims are staring at me. The big, stupid American, sobbing, making a spectacle of himself. But I can’t help it.

She prays in Spanish. Then, she gently traces the sign of the cross on my forehead using her thumb tip. After which we just hug some more, rocking back and forth, while other pilgrims gawk. When I leave, my backpack seems lighter somehow.

And so it was that on April 26, 2025, Pope Francis was laid to rest. And so, I believe, was that sad little boy.