By Andrea Hogan, Chairperson of the ElderHelp Board of Directors
It was my mother’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s that made me first think about aging and subsequently compelled me to get involved with ElderHelp of San Diego. I am almost embarrassed to admit that up until that point, I just didn’t think about that community — perhaps, in part, because my own mother and father didn’t seem to be aging at all.
Being so far away her compelled me to get involved with those in need closer to me. As the disease progressed and painfully robbed her and I of her memories and adventures, I’d find comfort looking through albums of all the travels she embarked on catching glimpses of her joy and wanderer spirit from snap to snap.
The adventure she talked most about was the Camino de Santiago, a 785km walk from St Jean Pied De Port in France to Santiago in Spain. The Camino is an on-foot pilgrimage over 35 days carrying nothing but a backpack of essentials. When I got time off from my job in June, it hit me like a lightning bolt that I needed to do this walk right then. I set out in my mother’s footsteps — 12 years to the very day from when she began her pilgrimage in 2012. I set off from St Jean Pied du port and walked 35km that first day over the Pyrenees.
With every step I felt a deeper understanding of her spirit, what she loved and who she was. It somehow offset the loss of me losing her and her losing herself to Alzheimer’s. Along the way, I carried her journal and reflected on her daily adventures as I had my own.
Something truly magical happens to the human spirit on the Camino. I suspect it has something to do with the perfect recipe of wanderers with a purpose from all walks of life, ages, countries and religions with no demands, distractions, responsibilities but with the goal to walk alone and together every day until you reach a common destination. Sharing sleeping quarters, dinners, coffees, blister supplies, stories of loss and laughs bonded people together in a profound way.
They say the 34-day pilgrimage length is perfectly designed to guide you through three phases of change — first your body is challenged as it adapts to a 30km varied terrain walk each day, then the uncluttering of the mind and lastly the enlightenment of your soul. As I conclude the pilgrimage I carry with me the memories of breathtaking landscapes, spectacular history and architecture, new friendships and the invaluable lesson that the human spirit is most profoundly revealed in the seemingly ordinary acts of kindness and support.
With every step I took, I was reminded that the essence of humanity lies not in grand gestures but in the acts of service and love we extend to each other. They say the Camino journey really starts when you arrive home — you carry it with you and are forever changed by the experience. I am so grateful that through my wonderful role at ElderHelp that I can give back to a community in honor of my mother. How wonderful it is to work for an organization that keeps people in the place they most likely had their greatest memories and adventures in their lives: their homes.