Walking the Camino de Santiago
In the decade and a half that I’ve trained for Camino, I’ve never done it without Francine before. There are days when that hits me, and I’m overcome with melancholy as I hike. At the same time, sometimes I can feel her with me, off to my left, hiking in her usual place. It is the strangest thing. Today, after […]
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Today is the second anniversary of my arrival in Santiago following my thousand-mile walking pilgrimage on the Via Podiensis and Camino Francés. From August 18 through October 23, 2023, I walked from Le Puy-en-Velay in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain on pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle Saint James the Greater. Last year on this date, I […]
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Next year, I plan to walk a long Camino for Francine. Some background is probably in order. At the annual Gathering of Pilgrims back in 2022, Francine attended a talk on one of the four main Camino routes in France: the Voie de Vézelay, also known as the Via Lemovicensis. She was immediately smitten with this route. For one thing, […]
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Today is the Feast of Saint James the Greater, known throughout the Spanish-speaking world as Santiago and in French as Saint Jacques. He was one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. Saint James is the patron saint of the archdiocese of Seattle. May you have the joy of the feast! James and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the […]
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Today would have been Francine’s 63rd birthday. Last year, when she turned 62, having been born in 1962, she proclaimed that it was going to be her year. She called it her “golden year”. Maybe it was. This is the year that she was swept up in the arms of Jesus. I have no doubt that she is in a […]
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Francine’s funeral arrangements are in place. Vespers for the Dead Vespers from the Office of the Dead will be sung for Francine on Thursday, 10 July, 2025 at 6:30 pm Pacific Time at Saint Patrick Church in Tacoma. The principal celebrant will be our friend, the Rev. Jacob Maurer. Music will be directed by Maestra Amy Gallwas. Vespers will not […]
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My beloved bride Francine passed to God at just after midnight on June 21. On behalf of our family, I ask for your continued prayers. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine,et lux perpetua luceat eis. Grant her eternal rest, O Lord,and may everlasting light shine upon her. Our family thanks all those who supported us through Francine’s terrible final illness. Funeral […]
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My beautiful bride of 17 years was taken to the emergency room at midnight of Easter Sunday. She was physically weak and having trouble with her memory. At Tacoma General Hospital, they ran every test you could imagine. They even sent a sample of her spinal fluid to the Mayo Clinic. On May 5, we received the final diagnosis from […]
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Date: 30 August 2023 Place: Madrid Ever get woken up from a dead sleep to hear “…doctor, emt, on the plane please come to aisle…” and realize you need to get up out of your seat because the person next to you has also sprung to life and must answer the call? That was new. We got to Madrid! It […]
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Today Becky and I headed to Spain! Date: 29 August 2023 Place: in transit And the “oh sh*t” moment today was realizing at 9:07 that my 9:05 pickup was for September 29. Not August. But Uber and God had me covered and I was in an Über in 5 minutes. While in the terminal I cancelled the outbound shuttle and […]
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