The Camino de Santiago can be traveled many times, but the exact same Camino is never walked.
The American Thom Ryng he knows it well. He has made a pilgrimage to Santiago six times, traveling different routes and living very different experiences. However, none of them had the meaning of the Camino that he completed this summer.
This time he walked in memory of his deceased wife.
The story, published this Sunday, August 30, turns a new pilgrimage into something much deeper: a way to remember, go through grief and continue moving forward when life forces us to do so.
Six Caminos and a different pilgrimage
Ryng was no newcomer to the Jacobean world. I already knew the effort of the stages, the shelters, the unexpected encounters and that particular routine that ends up being built while advancing towards Compostela.
He had done the Camino accompanied and also alone.
But returning after his wife died completely changed the meaning of the experience.
The pilgrim himself summarizes what he experienced with a particularly powerful phrase:
“The Camino healed me.”
It does not mean that walking can erase a loss or replace the help that each person may need when grieving. But his testimony once again shows something that many pilgrims say after arriving in Santiago: for weeks, walking forces one to reduce life to the essentials.
One step.
Then another.
And another one.
When Santiago is not really the goal
Thousands of people come to the Camino every year looking for something that does not always fit into a credential.
Some people start after a breakup, an illness, a family loss, a retirement, or simply at a time when they need to stop and think.
In those cases, Santiago continues to be the geographical destination, but it may not be the true goal.
For Thom Ryng, this Camino was inevitably linked to the memory of his wife.
And after six pilgrimages, you've probably discovered something that many veterans of the Camino know:
You can walk the same path several times and experience a completely different journey.
El Camino as a place to remember
Stories like this also help us understand why the Camino de Santiago continues to attract people from very different cultures, countries and beliefs.
The heritage, the landscapes or the sporting challenge explain only part.
The other belongs to each pilgrim.
To the people he remembers as he walks.
To the conversations that appear unexpectedly.
To the silences.
And, sometimes, what you need to leave behind before reaching the Plaza del Obradoiro.
Thom Ryng arrived back in Santiago.
But this time I wasn't walking just for him.
