What the Camino can teach you

After a decade of caring for their traumatically brain-injured daughter, Harold and Janette Schuringa of Oakville think they know the answer. And an epic adventure on the Camino de Santiago last year with then 33-year-old Jen confirmed their hunch.

To flourish, Jen needs challenge, community, and faith.

This was not a question that Harold and Janette expected to have to answer for their middle child.

But a horrific car crash in the spring of 2013 – just as Jen was graduating from university and embarking on a career – sent the Schuringa family on a journey from pleading with God for Jen’s life to be spared, to wondering how to turn the answer to that prayer into something more than avoiding bedsores and feeding tube complications.

Harold and Janette are our friends, and as their empty-nest lives were turned upside down by their daughter’s complex needs and a slow and complicated recovery, we marveled at their patience, commitment, and grace. And when they and Jen decided that tackling one of the world’s most-famous walking paths – the roughly 800-km trail from the Pyrenees on the border of France and Spain to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain – would serve as both motivation and reward for her grueling physiotherapy regime, we and a dozen other friends and family members, accepted the invitation to be part of the team that would help make it happen.

Community

And that is how community came to be one of the key ingredients of Jen’s flourishing. Jen’s personal support worker, trainer, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, and several family friends set aside their work and regular schedules to join forces and help Jen cycle and roll her way on a centuries-old path of pilgrimage, self-reflection, and personal achievement.

Whether you were part of the team for one week or four, it was clear to everyone on the crew that Jen was thriving. Yes, it was hard. Yes, it was uncomfortable. But when Jen sat in her jogger in the ruins of a medieval church and gazed up at the silhouette of a crumbling steeple against a brilliant blue sky, she was transfixed. Window-shopping for hats and frocks – things Jen is unlikely to wear – made her smile. Driving in the van, or rolling down a vineyard hill brought a look of intense concentration to her face. As Pauline Schuringa, van driver and Jen’s aunt said afterwards, “I could see Jen in the rearview mirror and watch her reaction as we drove. She was very aware of the scenery. She has always had a great aesthetic appreciation and it was a thrill to see her great big smile.”

As team members, we were buoyed by Jen’s evident enthusiasm for the journey, but she also had a similar effect on other pilgrims – people who didn’t know her but could see the amount of effort it was taking for Jen to propel herself forward on her recumbent trike, or for the team to support her by pushing or pulling her in the bright pink jogger.

“I was surprised by the emotional response to Jen and J’s Crew by other pilgrims,” said Bettie Van Gils Kloet, Jen’s personal trainer. “To see so many people on the side of the trail wiping away tears, cheering for Jen, and to hear their reflections of disbelief and admiration was lovely. Many said that their hardships on the trail seemed insignificant compared to Jen’s.”

The ragtag team itself also became a highlight of the experience for many of its members. We were part of J’s Crew because we know Jen or her parents, but many of us really met on the trail for the first time, or the first time in years. Our personalities, preferences, and physical abilities varied, yet coming together around a common goal motivated us to focus on our task at hand.

“I loved the way the team bonded together and enfolded the changing team members,” said Van Gils Kloet. “It was amazing to see how everyone took on roles and chores and helped each other out.”

“The camaraderie was a God thing,” said Harry Van Beilen.

Harold and Janette agree. As the people with both the original idea and the responsibility to pull the people and logistics together, they see the team that formed around their daughter’s need as a divine gift.

“The highlight was the team of people, changing throughout the weeks, who all brought with them specific gifts to contribute to the journey in a way that we could not have known or planned,” said Janette. “It was divinely inspired.”

“Whenever we were asked what to pray for, we always said ‘team unity,’ “ said Harold. “I am thankful that prayer was answered.”

Challenge

As a primary caregiver for someone who cannot speak, Leigh Valiente’s goal is to anticipate or respond to Jen’s needs, articulated through a language that very few people are able to share. The bond between them is evident. Leigh watches for eye blinks, hand movements, limb twitches or facial expressions that signal thirst, hunger, heat, cold, or discomfort. Yet she also knows that comfort is not a pathway to improvement or growth. Jen needs to be challenged.

Jen herself repeatedly ‘told’ her team that she was up for the challenge. Reflecting afterwards Leigh said that “Jen saying ‘yes’ was one of the highlights of the experience for her. “More kilometres? More beer? Jen always said ‘yes,’” laughed Leigh. Brother Erik agreed. “She faced every question we asked her with a ‘we can do it’ attitude. Sometimes I could tell her face looked exhausted, but she never gave us a clear hand gesture of ‘no.’ Our parents may have overruled and made the smart decision (to stop), but Jen was very determined.”

Two of the more significant challenges encountered by Jen became two of the highlights of the trip – iconic features of the Camino that combine physical challenge with spiritual significance. One was the trek to Iglesia de Santa Maria at O’Cebreiro, the oldest church associated with the pilgrim way, and accessed by the steepest ascent on the Camino. Locals told Jen and her crew that it was too steep and too narrow, but they made it and the magnificent views and sense of accomplishment made the arduous trek worth it.

The other was the climb to the Cruz de Ferro, known as the highest point on the trail. It’s an iron cross on a tall mast, rising from a huge pile of stones. Tradition has it that pilgrims carry a rock that symbolizes a burden they are carrying and leave it at the cross. Jen was also carrying a rock “and I was impressed by her concentration in raising her left arm high,” said Harold. “She was holding the rock securely, and then let it go at the right moment. These are hard movements for Jen to coordinate and I was inspired – yet again – by her expression of faith.”

Faith

For the thousands of people who tackle The Camino each year, The Way, as it is also known, is not necessarily a spiritual quest. This was also true for some members of J’s Crew. But walking a pilgrimage to Santiago started as a religious activity over 1,000 years ago, and much of the trek’s infrastructure and architecture is very Christian. As people who have experienced the power of prayer and healing, Harold and Janette planned Jen’s Camino with spiritual intention, and each day began with a short meditation on a spiritual discipline and a passage of Scripture, gleaned from The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun.

The meditations, on personal disciplines such as compassion, detachment, gratitude, or simplicity, helped to shape the thoughts and experiences of the day, and although they were chosen from a somewhat random list, they always seemed to create spiritual significance for the challenges of the day.

There were daily opportunities to attend masses or be blessed by music, nuns, priests, other pilgrims, or the spectacular scenery or architecture.

For Janette, one of those blessings came when she “came across two nuns who opened the doors to their very small and humble chapel and opened their arms to invite people in to be blessed by them. I stood in line with others to receive the blessing and to get my book stamped and I, like the others, received a physical hug and blessing in words, and on my forehead. It seemed as though they took part of a burden from me.” Although the blessing was spoken in Spanish and Janette did not understand the words being spoken, she left the chapel in tears. “It had a powerful effect on me.”

Where does Jen go from here?

The overwhelming conclusion for Jen’s parents, especially when they saw the depression that Jen experienced when she got back from Spain, is that Jen needs to keep challenging herself and she needs community around her.

It’s their dream to find a way for Jen and others like her to live in a sustainable community that gives them the balance of support and challenge they need to thrive.

“When we returned, we noticed, and many people mentioned to us, that Jen was just glowing,” said Janette. “She was healthy, strong, and her skin was luminescent. She seemed very full to the brim with the experience. It was worth all the effort.”

The experience was transformative.

“I have been changed by this experience,” said Janette. “It gives me a great deal of peace, that we were able to experience this slow and simple life of waking, walking, eating and sleeping with Jen and such a great team of people.

“It confirms our theory that people like Jen, people with disabilities, need grand(ish) experiences, community and physical activity.”