Day 6–Home!

Happy, Proud Family

It did not surprise us that our family was happy to have us home. They love us. We are hands-on in each of their lives. They missed us. But we were surprised at how proud they were of us. Sally had purchased some simple little bracelets with yellow arrows and shells on them and our children and grandchildren grabbed those up and put them on. It was their chance to get involved in a tangible way in our adventure.

My brother and sister-in-law, Tony and Dee, drove in from Iowa to be with us for the weekend. They came to love on us and let us know that they too were proud of our achievement. Tony would have loved to be with us, but physically that was not possible. But he and Dee followed along with us everyday, and reached out every day to encourage us. He said, ”Like the older brother in Jesus’ parable I resented and envied the fact that my younger brother did these things. But I decided that rather than let that feeling prevail, I’d embrace your adventures and be a part of them.” He did this with the Jerusalem move as well. And I love and admire him for it.

The Yellow Arrow

(Just as an aside, Sally is not sitting on this bench, because it’s wet. She is squatting and was very proud of the fact that she could hold that squat for the time it took me to get my act together—so a while.)

We miss the yellow arrows. And what we miss is the simplicity of just following them. Except for maybe three or four instances, you didn’t have to make decisions about which path to take. You just went where the yellow arrows pointed.

For 35 days we didn’t think much about much of anything except getting to the next stop for the night. And we knew that the yellow arrows would keep us on the Camino, and that our hotel would be close to the trail and to the church in the village or town where we were staying. Every afternoon we’d get to a point where we could see the village or larger town where we were going to end the day. We’d look for the church steeple, which always stood tall above the rest of the buildings. And we’d know that our hotel would likely be in the shadow of the church. And it almost always was.

This is one of the villages where we stayed the night. You can see the bell tower of the church rising above all the other buildings. Our hotel was in the plaza dominated by the church. As I said above, this was true almost every time. Just stay on the Camino trail, look for the church and you’d find your destination. Find the church—find your nesting place. On the Camino, simple. But in Holland, MI? Not so simple. We miss simple.

No Worries for A While

We could stop and have coffee, take wonderful selfies, chat with other travelers, just pause and look back now and then to see what we were missing behind us—we don’t do that enough, do we? We talked for hours about our children and grand children and how we could be healthily in their lives. Josh and I are venturing out on a new kind of community called ”still processing”—stillprocessing.org—if you’re interested. And so Sally and I talked a lot about that, but we didn’t have any decisions to make about equipment, programming, speakers, or any of the logistics. That’s Josh’s thing and he was on it.

Now we are home and back to managing our lives without yellow arrows to follow. And let’s all agree that there is a part of us that would like life to be so simple as to only have to follow clear signs. But life is not that simple. And the signs are not that clear. And when you stop to think about it, would you really want life to be just a matter of following someone else’s path, even an ancient path like the Camino?

Not us. But it’s tempting and there are a bunch of folks who would love for us to just follow the path they’ve laid out. As for me and my house, not doing that!

The video below is of our oldest granddaughter, Emma. Emma clearly demonstrates that we are not the sharpest crayons in the box, or the most talented, but we are willing to try weird stuff—and record ourselves doing so!

This is home. And this is us!