Years

April 10th is a significant date for two reasons.  It was my brother Jonathan's birthday and it was the day my Dad and I started walking the Camino de Santiago. I remember, as Dad and I started winding our way up the Via Valcarlos from St. Jean Pied de Port, that we talked about Jon and what it would have been like to have him with us on this adventure.  In the long hours of solitude on the Camino, that thought came back time and time again. What would it have been like?

It's sort of hard to say what it would have been like, because, like so many things related to Jon, it's nothing but blank space. He would have turned thirty six today.  I have no idea what a thirty six year old Jon would have been like.
I don't know if he would have even been able to go on the Camino with Dad and me.  Maybe he would have had a job and a family and stuff that would have kept him from going.  We like to think that he would have been free and adventurous like he was when he was twenty, but who knows.
A lot of what I do now is try to remember Jon before the drugs took him away. He is frozen in time. The little girl that Jon is holding up there, is now sixteen and learning to drive. Everyone in that picture has changed a lot, except Jon, he hasn't changed one little bit, and he never will in our minds.
My faith tells me that his journey has been on-going, and the reality is that he has changed, hopefully, as my Aunt Fran heard from the Lord, he has "grown much faster," where he is now.  April 10 will always be a day to think about what might have been, and to learn again to take the journey as it comes.
Buen Camino and Happy Birthday Molebutt.