Morningtime. 

My wife and I parted in the lobby of the albergue. She was crying. It was a little-girl cry. The kind of crying you do when you don’t care who is watching you. She has never been self-conscious about her own emotions. Thank God nobody ever told this beautiful woman that it’s not dignified to cry in public. 

All the pilgrims were buzzing around us, gawking at the weeping woman. They were getting ready for their day on the Camino as white fog hung over distant peaks and summits, hovering atop the green mountainsides like Aladdin’s carpet. 

The lobby was alive with energy. Pilgrims were unpacking and repacking their backpacks. Stuffing belongings into tiny drybags, then shoving these bags into slightly larger drybags, then, finally, cramming these bags into backpacks. They laced their boots. They refilled water bottles. 

Meanwhile, my wife and I stood at the door, saying farewell. 

My taxi had just arrived and was waiting on me. We said goodbye with an immersive American hug. A full-body embrace. 

You can say whatever you want about Americans, and you’d probably be right about us. Still, despite our political vitriol; despite our exploded sense of self-entitlement; despite our self-congratulatory demeanor; despite our classical ineptness within other countries; we are huggers. 

We Americans hug one another for every conceivable occasion, including the onset of daylight saving time. We slap backs. We press our hearts together. We hold each other long and hard. 

Jamie held me tight and wept into my ear. We have walked 350 miles together, through peaks and valleys. We traversed river basins, crossed miles of flowering canola fields, did our laundry in the sink at random albergues. We crossed the Pyrenees together. 

But my legs were unable to endure a moment more. I tried for as long as I could to keep up. But I can hardly walk. The spirit is willing, but… 

Well, you know the rest. 

So, this beautiful woman bid me adieu. This magnificent brunette, whom I met on the Camino of Life before I was old enough to consume alcohol; who wore a baby blue blouse the very night I knew that I would marry her; who gave me the audacity to be myself. This woman who not only helped me grow up, but grew up alongside me. 

“I am afraid to do this trail without you,” she said. 

“Don’t be,” I said. 

“I’m afraid I won’t make any friends out there.”

“You’ll make too many.”

“I can’t walk without you.”

“You’ll walk just fine.”

“What if I fall?”

“What if you don’t?”

“What if I’m not strong enough?”

“What if you are?”

“I’ll miss you.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

The cab was waiting, the driver growing impatient. My wife and I released each other and her face broke wide open. 

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

I walked away, limping toward the minivan. I stowed my backpack and fiddle in the rear compartment. 

I wanted more than anything to impart strength to my wife and best friend as I left her. So I nailed a smile to my face and kept my eyes dry. 

But my chest ached, and the false smile was quivering. We set out to do this trail together. But you cannot plan your own life. No matter how you toil and spin, worry and fret, organize and schedulize, who can add even an hour to his or her own life, or plan how that hour is spent?

The vehicle door closed. 

The passenger beside me was Coline, a Belgian lawyer. She’s a very put-together woman whose blisters paused her Camino experience. She was speaking Spanish with our cabdriver, but I wasn’t really there. I was just sitting in the seat beside her. 

The cab drove away. And I saw Jamie standing on the other side of the vehicle window, watching me fade into the mountains.

Her silhouette, growing smaller. 

So strong. So brave. So valiant, this woman. So brimming with cheer. So wholly and everlastingly blessed with the beautifully rare gift of smart-assity.

This woman, who stood beside a wayward and tragic boy at an altar, 22 years ago. A boy who was never sure what he wanted to be. He was neither sure where he was going, how he would get there, nor who the hell he was. 

She was my Isolde, and I was her Tristan. She was Juliet, and I Romeo. She was my Snow White, and I was the Seven Dwarves. 

Our names have always been said together. Jamie and Sean. And always in this order. 

I wore a hangdog look, sitting slumped in my seat, staring out the tinted window, watching the Galician-Massif mountain ranges rise and fall, as the Iberian Peninsula swallowed our cab whole. I saw the impossibly green hills, the warm morning sun, and the pink sky of morning. 

“Are you okay?” said Coline beside me. 

“Yeah, I’m just fine,” I said. 

Then she handed me a tissue.