The Camino de Santiago is a centuries-old pilgrimage route through Europe that ends at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where the remains of Saint James are believed to rest. Pilgrims have walked these paths for over 1,000 years, seeking atonement, healing, hope and community.
This past summer, I joined the pilgrim flow, walking a six-day stretch of the Camino with my husband and our adult son. We began at the Spain-Portugal border, carrying pilgrim passports we got stamped at cafes, churches, hostels, even bars. We stayed in modest inns, ate local meals, and walked through verdant forests and hillsides dotted with crosses and centuries-old stone chapels.
I initially approached the journey as a hike, a physical experience punctuated by beautiful views and historical markers. But it didn’t stay that way. From our first stop at a chapel, the way was marked by a series of makeshift memorials that peregrinos (pilgrims) had collectively made for their loved ones. My heart cracked open when I saw them.
Pilgrims had left handwritten notes to their loved ones. There were professional photo cards, like those used for holiday greetings, as well as funeral prayer cards, printed announcements and photo prints, often including names, birth and death dates, and personal messages.
My brother died two years ago, and these tributes moved me more than I expected. One memorial included photos of men around the age my brother was when he died. One had a birthday just a day before his. They looked healthy and full of life, so much like I remember my brother. The images suggested lives that, like his, ended far too soon.
At nearly every memorial, there was a photograph of a woman in her early 60s, the same woman at each place. On the back of each photo was a handwritten note, apparently from her adult child: “Mother, how much I miss you,” followed by a short message. I saw at least 20 versions of the same photo, each carrying a different tribute.
The Camino, I came to realize, was more than a hike. It was a container for grief, for the notes, the photos, the names written on scallop shells, the mementos of loved ones. No one seemed to hide their sadness. In fact, feeling the sadness seemed to be the point.
Since his death, I had been grieving my brother in private, through writing, meditation and moments of silence. But none of it felt sufficient. But here, in the shared rhythm of walking, I saw grief made public and communal. People lit candles. They bowed their heads. They walked together in silence.
Inside the churches, people prayed through the intercession of various saints. It was impossible to know exactly what or for whom they were praying, but the intensity was unmistakable in the duration of their prayers, the bowed heads and the quiet tears. The space allowed for sadness without explanation and without trying to brush it away.
These are my people! I thought. My family didn’t actively practice our Catholicism when I was growing up, but as a Latina, I’ve always carried a kind of cultural Catholicism. Today my spiritual practice centers on daily meditation grounded in Buddhist principles, and I attend a Unitarian church. But Catholic rituals, stories and symbols have shaped the backdrop of my life.
Along the Camino, I found myself reflecting on the lives of the saints, many of whom I had learned about during Catholic school. I thought about how people turn to these saints because they know their stories of suffering and miracles, seeking help knowing that perhaps they share in something the saint has experienced. I realized that it is not so different from what I’ve come to understand as an adult: We all want to be seen. Who better to witness your pain than someone who has lived through something similar? Who better to ask for help than someone who’s been there?
One church held a statue of Mary, visibly pregnant. We were told that people came to this particular image to pray while struggling to conceive, to grieve the loss of children, and to give thanks for the gift of new life. I thought of loved ones who have experienced those losses. And I thought of the joys: our friend Marissa, who gave birth to a daughter this summer; my two nieces, Caroline and Angelica, who recently became mothers, and the joy my nephews have brought to our family.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem so strange to be inspired by a statue to pray for something as life-transforming as the hope for motherhood or gratitude for it. As a meditator, I regularly engage in loving-kindness practice, during which one imagines a source of unconditional love and gradually extends that compassion outward, eventually encompassing all beings. When I looked at the prayers to Mary through the lens of motherhood, I felt a new circle of loving-kindness open, connecting communities, the living and the dead, the grieving and the hopeful. I began to understand praying through saints not only as an act of faith, but as an expression of communal care.
The Camino was, for me, a pilgrimage of sorts after all, though not a strictly religious one. Seeing the saints, some sharing the names of people we’ve lost, and surrounded by prayers to them, I began to think my brother was not gone, residing on some unreachable plane. Instead, I began to feel that he is still in communion with me, just not in physical form. The circle of loving-kindness widened again, as I witnessed how others made space for grief, how they honored the presence of those no longer living.
The community of the Camino included the living and the dead, the hopeful and the grieving, all held together not necessarily by belief, but by shared ritual, remembrance and love. In the end, what moved me most was not the grandeur of the cathedrals or the historical weight of the route, but the way strangers carried their losses together. The Camino did not erase grief, but it made space for it. That, more than anything, felt like grace.
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