Erin

It felt like I said goodbye to Erin today.

Walking through a green valley in the mostly otherwise brown Meseta this morning as dawn broke and the sun began to shine through, I was caught, overwhelmed, really, by the beauty of the ruins of an ancient monastery.

As soon as I saw the crumbling walls and soaring arches, I told myself: This is the place.

I just knew. I felt it.

I walked inside in awe. You could feel the timelessness of the place. There was no ceiling anymore. Sections of the walls had fallen away. And yet it was still breathtakingly beautiful.

An older woman had a table set up inside with coffee and fruit set out. I asked if I could buy a cup.

“No,” she told me. “Donativo.”

Donation based.

I took a cup of coffee and a small yellow apple, set down my backpack, and spent some time simply contemplating the grounds.

Eventually, my feet led me outside the great walls of the ruins to a small wooded area directly adjacent. A handwritten sign designated a modest looping path through the trees as the Camino de Silencio, or the Way of Silence.

The little trail was perhaps fifty feet long, a space for prayer and reflection. Handwritten quotations appeared along the way, offering prompts for contemplation. Phrases like:“nature is a door open for all,” ”you can cut the flowers, but you can’t capture the spring,” and many others. 

An old tree trunk with a deep hollow caught my eye. In front of this one, “transcend the known and feel the love.”

This was the spot.

I placed Erin deep inside, out of sight. And I spoke to her.

I said goodbye.

Erin and I crossed paths for only a couple of years. We met through my book club, Flow Readers. She was vivacious, full of energy and surprise. She was a wonderful host and lived in a beautiful home. She loved her dog dearly and all animals. Helping to support an animal rescue farm was a passion of hers. 

One of my earliest memories of Erin was her book selection for our monthly gathering. It was the novel Matrix, a medieval story about a community of nuns who overcome adversity to build a thriving convent, damming a stream, confronting challenge after challenge, and navigating friendship, power, and love.

Erin and I had much in common, and I always felt our friendship was just on the precipice of becoming something deeper. Toward the end, we made plans to have lunch outside of book club. Scheduling difficulties kept getting in the way.

And then there was no more time.

I will never get to have that lunch with Erin.

But today, sitting with her in that quiet grove, I felt as though I could speak with her. That somehow she understood. That she was listening.

I said my goodbye and continued walking.

Not much farther down the Camino, I reached the small town of Castrojeriz and stopped for breakfast. I sat in the shade beneath a centuries-old bell tower, eating bread with tomato, honey and ham, drinking freshly squeezed orange juice and a café cortado.

I looked around at the beauty of it all and thought, as I have so many times on this journey:

How is this my life right now?

Perhaps fifty steps after returning to the Camino, I came to the thirteenth century Church of Nuestra Señora del Manzano.

I went inside intending simply to pray, but an attendant stopped me at the entrance. Admission was one euro. I explained that I only wanted to pray, but she gently insisted that the fee still applied.

I gladly paid it. These ancient places need caring for.

As I walked the perimeter of the church, I was again overwhelmed by its age and beauty, the knowledge that these walls have stood here for more than eight centuries.

And then I saw a statue.

Saint Anthony, the Saint for whom the monastery was named. 

At his feet lay a pig.

I stopped.

The ruins where I had left Erin that morning were the Monastery of San Antón, Saint Anthony. What I had not known when I chose that place was that Saint Anthony the Abbot has been associated for centuries with pigs and other animals and is traditionally depicted with a pig at his feet.

It was meant to be, I thought.

After Erin died, her friends distributed some of her belongings. One of the things that came to me was a painting of a pig.

It sits on a shelf in my living room, where I can see it from my sofa.

Erin loved animals. She supported an animal sanctuary. It feels right that part of her can now rest in a quiet hollow in a tree along the Camino de Silencio, next to a monastery dedicated to Saint Anthony.

A place of overwhelming beauty whose namesake, somehow, reflected a piece of who she was.

For the first time since we lost her, I feel at peace with that loss.

And I feel gratitude.

For her friendship.

For the impression she left on me.

And for the impression she left on all of us who were lucky enough to know her.