Why I wish I’d walked the Camino with my dad

My dad, Norman.

My father was 94 the first time I walked the Camino in Northern Spain, too unsteady on his feet to even consider marching over the Pyrenees with me into Pamplona. If only I had discovered the wonders of the Camino 20 years earlier. (See photo of my dad and mom, above.)

My dad, Norman, was wonderful to spend time with outdoors. He was a man of few words and he looked, listened, and observed like no one else I’ve met. As a former science teacher and a natural-born naturalist, the Camino would have brought him great joy.

As a gardener, he enjoyed playing one of my favorite games: Guess the crop. As I walk through farm fields and pass by yards with well-tended gardens, I’m compelled to identify each thing growing. Perhaps this isn’t one of your obsessions, but I love this game.

The wildflowers in the spring. And the blackberries and figs ready to be eaten in the fall, not to mention almonds to be broken open with a stone or an occasional walnut.

Moving through old villages, we’d have studied the walls of the stone houses to find the shapes of windows and doors that came and went as the buildings were renovated over the centuries. My dad once kept bees, so he’d have chuckled, too, when I spied a stream of honeybees coming and going from a hole in cathedral wall.

As a woodworker and former carpenter, my father would have noted the changes in architecture and building materials as we walked from one region of Spain into the next. And as a birder, he’d have enjoyed the Corn Buntings singing from the tops of the bushes in the spring and the tiny European Robins belting out their songs in the fall.

My dad is now gone, but I do have the pleasure of leading groups on the Camino with my brother Don. We are the sons of the same man, cut from the same cloth, and we are proud members of the “Sons of Norm” club. We strive to carry on dad’s traditions and we think of him every time we walk the Camino.