As many of you know, Ed was number nine of ten children who grew up in Roslindale, City of Boston. Ed’s brother, Bill, was number eight (his email address was Liam810 for #8 of 10).

We learned that Bill passed away at the Labor Day weekend. He had lived in St Paul, Minnesota for more than 40 years, ever since he went there to earn a PhD in medicinal chemistry at the University of Minnesota. In recent years, he firmly resisted suggestions that he move closer to family in the Boston area by those of us who were concerned that he didn’t have relatives nearby. He made St Paul his home to the end.

A big and unique personality, Bill was a significant figure in Ed’s life… and in Anne’s. In the seventies, shortly after we started dating, Bill visited his parents and siblings in Boston and launched the first of many piercing conversations with Anne. He ran marathons and, as a scientist and later, a university professor, he never hesitated to share finely judged points of view.

As the years went on, Bill broke up with his partner, Gary, the parents died, Bill took early retirement from the university and switched to working as a pharmacist. Unchanging, however, was Bill’s commitment to the family. Whenever he could, he attended family gatherings. He tracked the names of the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren. Over decades, he made countless biannual pilgrimages to Ireland to ĺook up, and in many cases, visit with Muldoon, Lynch, McGlinchey relations.

We dedicate this Pilgrimage on the Via Francigena to Bill.

Written on September 2nd: As we pack (the bare minimum) in our backpacks and as Ed wraps up plans for our route and accommodations, we also look back with love and gratitude on the just-ending beautiful summer. Marked by losses, sorrow and also reunions and joy, memories of the summer weave a tapestry against which we will quietly contemplate Creation during our pilgrimage.

A few treasured summer memories out of so many…

It’s been a long three years since we put on our walking shoes in Europe. Our route starting September 2022 will be the Italian section of the Via Francigena from Milan to Rome. The VF is even more ancient than the Camino de Santiago and as the map above shows, traditionally took pilgrims from Canterbury, England and France over the Alps and down the Italian peninsula to Rome. On the map, you can find our starting point between Aosta and Piacenza.

Back in 2019 our last Camino ended in Santiago de Campostela, Spain after we walked the Camino del Norte. Our first Camino — when we caught the “Camino bug” — was 2015 when we walked the traditional Camino “Frances” (the “French way”) from St Jean Pied-du-Port in France, over the Pyrenees and westward across Spain. In 2016 we walked the Camino of St Francis from Florence through the Appenines to La Verna and Assisi to Rome.

Our third Camino, in 2017, was the Camino Portugues, starting in Lisbon and going north to Santiago. In 2018 we did the first half of the Camino del Norte, which follows Spain’s north coast along the Bay of Biscay. Our starting point was Lourdes in France. In 2019, the second half began in Santander and ended in Santiago de Campostela.

We are excited to resume our meditative walking and curious to see how we adapt to the realities of the post-covid world. Stay tuned for occasional blogs from the path.

NOTES: You want to “subscribe” to this anneandedblog.com to be notified when new posts are published.

If you are curious about our previous caminos, look through the Monthly Archives. And if you see the post called Ups and Downs in Asturias from Soto de Luina, it dates from September 2019 and I haven’t figured out how to get it to appear in its proper date order. (I have subsequently deleted that post.)