I have so much beautiful music I haven’t listened to since Jim died. I know it will stir up memories from the deep center of my heart, where all the pain surrounds. But I want to reclaim this music, so it can continue to wrap around my new life.

“Camino” by Oliver Schroer was our beloved Sunday music.

Oliver walked the Camino de Santiago in 2004, composing songs and playing his violin in churches along the way. His music is aching, soulful and pure.

I listened to it, cried, and listened again and again until I found a place of peace.

Losing someone you love is a very interior process. It feels I am walking my own Camino. A long, mostly solitary, personal spiritual pilgrimage, to find and create new meaning from this life ahead.

Oliver wrote there is both wonder and struggle on the trail, as you get to know the earth one step at a time. “There was a time in our lives before the Camino, and there is a time after it.”

As for the time during it, there is an ancient Camino word “ultreia” to encourage all of us pilgrims: go farther, go higher.