Our 2019 Camino de Santiago de Campostela – Camino del Norte is dedicated to Ed’s sister, Mary Muldoon MacDonald who was born to eternal life on July 22. She would have celebrated her 82nd birthday in August.

As you can see from the first photo above, she was vibrant and beautiful three weeks before her death. The second photo shows Mary, in blue, at the center of her nine siblings. The occasion was their parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1979.

Mary was always at the center of the action, as a leader of the pack among her brothers and sisters, or in the home she made with her husband, Bill MacDonald, four daughters and a son. That home became the focus of countless cookouts and Christmas parties that linked the families and generations together in a warm and constant embrace.

At the wake, the stream of mourners included Mary’s entire yoga class, fellow volunteers at the homeless shelter and her co-workers and the owner of the bookstore where she worked until the week before she entered the hospital for surgery for a rare intestinal cancer. Mary was a ten-year survivor of Stage 3B ovarian cancer, so we had hoped that she might beat the odds once more to stay with us a little longer.

Mary died on the Feast of Mary Magdalene (July 22). The first reading was from Proverbs 31:10, 25-26: “Who can find a woman of worth? Far beyond jewels is her value. She is clothed with strength and dignity and laughs at the days to come. She opens her mouth in wisdom; kindly instruction is on her tongue.”

We carry Mary and her model of a full and loving life with us in our Camino, along with the memories of other family and friends who have gone on before us.

Anne and I are flying to Boston on September 7 to attend a memorial service for all our family and friends that have preceded us into the next life. 2019 is the 30th anniversary on our mother’s death and we have had  a memorial service every year in her honor. As other members of the Muldoon family, other relatives, and close friends have passed away we have added them to the memorial. This year we are remembering our sister Mary MacDonald.

We leave from Boston to Santander, Spain on September 9 and arrive on September 10. We start walking on September 11. We plan to walk into Santiago de Compostela on October 7.

We are dedicating this pilgrimage to Mary MacDonald and will have her pilgrim passport stamped as we make our way across northern Spain. Mary will receive an official Compostela when we arrive in Santiago.