I completed the pilgrimage in my mother’s shoes

Dear Delyara, My mother dreamed of walking the Camino de Santiago but died before retirement. Among her belongings, I found a pair of hiking shoes she had worn only twice. I was fifty-nine, overweight, and had never walked farther than ten kilometres. I decided to carry her shoes on the route, then changed my mind and wore them. I trained for eighteen months, lost toenails, learned to treat blisters, and postponed once after knee surgery. Today, I reached the cathedral after walking 280 kilometres. The shoes were worn through at the heels and one sole had been repaired with tape. At the final square, other pilgrims cheered, but I sat on the ground and removed them. Inside the left shoe, I had written my mother’s name. I expected to feel that I had completed her dream for her. Instead, I understood that I had carried grief until it became my own journey. I placed the shoes beside me, looked at the cathedral, and thanked her for wanting something she never knew would one day teach me how to continue.