“Blessed are you pilgrim, if your backpack empties of things and your heart doesn’t know how to hold so many emotions.”

The Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross) is located on the Camino de Santiago. Specifically, it is located on the highest point of the French way between the towns of Manjarín and Foncebadón.

Pilgrims traditionally leave a stone at the Cruz de Ferro. Most people bring a stone from their home. The stone represents a burden: physical, and symbolic.

The cross is 550km (340 miles) from where we started in St. Jean Pied de Port, France.

The day we arrived in France, we got off the train and met a pilgrim I would end up walking many days with. She was 20 years older than me, and 20 times fitter than I was. We were, however, the same height, which it turns out is a key in determining stride. We made good walking partners. We shared stories as we walked. Like many pilgrims, our packs were too heavy at the beginning. The subject of the rocks came up a lot. She was carrying not only her rock, but rocks for friends who couldn’t walk the miles themselves to the Iron Cross. As our friendship increased, she shared that she was carrying a letter of forgiveness for a hurt that she had been holding into for more than 50 years, she planned to lay it at the iron cross.

Sometime before we reached the Cruz de Ferro, our rest days didn’t line up and me and my walking buddy were separated. The day we climbed to the cross, I walked in the pouring rain with my daughters. It was somber as we climbed the hill. The Cruz de Ferro wasn’t just a giant pile of rocks, there were letters, photos, baby shoes and all kinds of mementos. You could feel the emotions from the centuries piled up. I imagined the burdens and prayers floating to heaven in the stormy clouds. After days of separation, my friend and I met again at the exact moment we reached the cross. With a tear stained face, and a smile that stretched from ear to ear she told me “I left it at the foot of the cross and I feel lighter.”

Today is Good Friday. As I journey to the cross today, my journey will be the same symbolic one Christians have journeyed for centuries. My pilgrimage will be the stations of the cross. Since the Middle Ages, people unable to walk a religious pilgrimage, would walk the stations.

The cross will be waiting for us.

48”x24” mixed media. “Journey to the Cross”