2006

 Today was a beautiful day. I left at 6.15am in the dark, and watched as dawn gradually broken behind us, the sun only rising at 7.30am (due to Spain being at the western edge of a shared timezone with France and Germany.  Birds sang as the sun rose, but otherwise it was incredibly quiet as I made my way towards Logrono. 

There's high mountain escarpment shrouded in mist which we have been walking towards, which we're now walking parallel with. Lower mountains are covered in wind turbines which keep watch and order over the valleys below, many of which are covered by the La Rioja vineyards. Church bells from the towns toll out across the valleys.  

There was a little memorial spot by the side of the track today with many piles of rocks on which people have left letters and mementos. I was touched by one which read (and it was laminated so some had intended to bring this letter) "Dear Debra, your children and I are fine. You were such a fighter until you could fight now more. You are now in peace while my fight goes on. I have loved you to end end - Graham".

As I tell people that I am remembering each year of my priesthood many people express surprise that I can remember back so far. My memories are flooded with so many things from each year that I don't know if my memory is different to others perhaps. My brother Michael has an extraordinary memory perhaps I have a share of this. I might be mixing up events by a year or two, but I have the advantage of breaking up my life into the years I have spent in each parish whose start and end dates I remember well. 

As I think of 2006 I remember Nikki and the funeral I did for her son Noah. On the very night that Nikki brought her second son Toby home from hospital, her 18 month old son Noah died of cot death. Nikki (and her husband Warwick) underwent the most difficult time of grief that I could imagine with all the complexity of having a new child and the excitement and sleep deprivation that brings. 

But Nikki is extraordinary and navigated her grief so well that much of what I know about grief I learned from her. We went on a spiritual journey in which Nikki concluded "I used to think that everything happens for a reason. Now I know that some things happen for no reason", and this allowed her to discover that God could still be a God of love despite it all, and to  embrace Catholic faith and to be baptised the following year. Years later Nikki is still an extraordinary person who has managed another difficult loss in her life so well. 

On a happier note, the Boys Beach Pilgrimage became the Boys Snowboarding Pilgrimage in Narraweena. I'm not sure that the mother of the 16 year old boy whom I taught to snowboard who then decided to spend the years after school travelling the world and snowboarding ever fully forgave me, but it did become the catalyst for a teenage boys youth group again, and when then boys were 17-18 then invited me to join their touch football team in the local competition and gave me the #1 Tshirt. Some fantastic kids in this group, and the next cohort who followed.