Why I’m walking. Why I’m writing. Why this book matters.
I thought I knew what the Camino would be for. A pilgrimage to grieve, to honour Angé, to mark the loss of the most beautiful presence in my life. I imagined the walking would give me space to process, to reflect, to remember her — and that by the end, I might feel “healed” or, at the very least, a little more whole. But the Camino had other plans. And now, so do I.
Somewhere between the long roads, cracked feet, strange bunk beds, morning coffees, and the quiet companionship of fellow pilgrims, I realised this wasn’t just about Angé. It was about mourning itself. Not just my mourning — but the way we all mourn. And how little space we give it. How little language. How few tools. How few places to say: “This is what it’s like to live after the person I loved most in the world has died.”
That’s why this book exists. It’s not a manual. It’s not a 10-step guide to moving on. It’s not a psychology textbook. It’s my truth — and maybe yours too. It’s a way to say out loud what grief actually looks like on a Wednesday morning when the kettle’s boiling and no one is there to say “good morning.” It’s about those moments you want to scream because someone said, “You’re so strong.” It’s about watching the moon rise and remembering that they used to love it, and crying for no reason. It’s about remodeling your life — not because you want to — but because you have no choice.
And it all started because I couldn’t keep it in anymore. The feelings, the memories, the anger, the gratitude, the laughter, the shame of laughing, the fear that I’ll forget, and the guilt that I still remember everything so vividly. I needed to walk. I needed to write. I needed to mourn.
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The Camino wasn’t what I expected
When I first began walking, I thought the journey would be a sacred space — a quiet, mystical space filled with signs, symbols, and solitude. I imagined I’d be walking mostly alone, talking to Angé in my head, laying sunflowers down at the base of trees or by flowing rivers, and letting the tears come gently.
Some of that happened. But the Camino surprised me. It was louder, more social, more human than I’d imagined. I met people who were also grieving, people escaping jobs, people retiring, people lost in their own ways. And I realised that mourning isn’t only about death — it’s about all the things we lose. Relationships. Health. Time. Dreams.
The Camino cracked me open. It made me admit that I was mourning more than just Angé. I was mourning my former life. My shared plans. My assumed future. My rhythm. My purpose. I was mourning the version of myself that existed when she was alive. That’s when I realised — this is what people don’t talk about. That mourning is messy. That mourning is layered. That it doesn’t end after the funeral. That it changes shape, it changes you — and unless you let it change you, it will crush you.
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Laughter, shame, and guilt
One night I laughed too hard. Someone made a joke at the auberge, and I laughed so hard I cried. But then I felt sick. Sick that I could laugh when she was gone. Sick that I could feel any joy. That’s when I realised: we don’t talk enough about how confusing mourning is. It’s not a line from pain to peace. It’s a wild storm — laughter, tears, stillness, rage, silence, chaos — all in one hour sometimes.
Writing this book, I made a decision: I will not edit out the contradictions. I will not remove the anger. I will not pretend that forgiveness is easy, or that love is enough to carry you through. I will also not hide the good. The hope. The ridiculous moments. The absurd beauty of walking through sunflower fields in the rain and thinking, “She would’ve loved this.”
Because mourning is all of it. And the more I walk, the more I see how little we allow ourselves to hold both things at once — joy and pain, love and absence, peace and restlessness.
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The hole that never leaves
There’s one lesson I learned on the Camino that I never saw coming — and it’s the most important one: I will always be in mourning.
Always.
Mourning will never, ever, ever leave me. Not next year. Not in a decade. Not even if I find happiness again. It’s not a phase. It’s not a period. It’s a state. A condition of the soul. And anyone who has lost someone they loved deeply — a partner, a child, a parent, a sibling, a lifelong friend — will understand what I mean.
Once you enter mourning, you never fully leave it. You just start to live with it. It becomes part of you — like a shadow that stretches and shrinks depending on the day, the light, and the company you keep. But it never disappears.
And so I began to notice something else: the Camino wasn’t just filled with grief-stricken pilgrims like me. It was filled with people quietly carrying that hole inside them — the hole left behind by someone they loved. The world, I realised, is full of mourners. Maybe even everyone is mourning something or someone. Everyone is living with a version of that hollow space — a silence where there used to be laughter, a longing where there used to be presence.
Some people try to fill the hole with work or distraction. Some scratch at it every day until it defines who they are. Some deny it exists at all. And others — and I think this is the wisest way — let the hole find its place. Not a space of absence, but a space of meaning. They remodel their lives around it. They let it exist without letting it control them. That’s what I’m learning to do.
Because Angé is gone, and the hole she left behind is real. But I can choose what I build around it. I can let it remind me to love more, to listen better, to walk slower, to speak softer. That’s the lesson the Camino gave me, over and over again, with every footstep and every sunrise: Mourning isn’t something you recover from. It’s something you live with — and if you let it, something that can reshape you in profound, beautiful, and sometimes painful ways.
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Why I’m writing this book
I’m writing this because someone needs to tell the truth. And if you’ve picked this up — maybe that someone needs to hear some new thoughts is you
You might be here because you’ve lost someone. You might be here because you’re scared of losing someone. Or maybe you’re here because someone you love is grieving and you don’t know how to help. This book won’t fix that. But it might give you language for it.
• It might give you the courage to say, “No, I’m not okay.”
• It might give you permission to say, “I laughed today and I felt guilty.”
• It might give you space to say, “I want to live again, but I don’t know how.”
You’ll find stories here. Not polished ones. Raw ones. You’ll find lists, suggestions, questions, half-truths, whole feelings, and scattered pieces that I hope will make sense in your own heart.
You’ll also find Angé. She’s in every chapter. In every sentence. In every walk. Not as a ghost or an angel, but as the voice in the back of my mind reminding me to be kind, to keep going, and to sit still sometimes and watch the moon. You may find something of you loved one here to, to remember and cherish.
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Camino changed my mind
I thought I would walk away from this journey “healed.”
But instead, I’m learning to live with the wound.
I thought I would write a tribute.
But instead, I’m writing a challenge — to every mourner who’s ever been told to move on.
I thought I would be alone.
But instead, I found a trail of people just like me, putting one foot in front of the other.
I thought mourning was a chapter of my life
But it’s a thread that runs through every chapter of your future life .
And I now know: this isn’t a goodbye.
This is a beginning.
So here’s the book.
Here’s the walk.
Here’s the mourning.
And here’s a new kind of hope — not the kind that fixes everything, but the kind that lets you live while everything is still unreal.
