St-Maurice: All You Can Eat and Beer Day # 1

St-Maurice

Via Francigena #7 of 20

We spent most of the day eating peanut M&M’s and sleeping. So much for the beer.

We made it out eventually to the Abbaye de Saint-Maurice. I came upon a chapel and had the opportunity to light a candle in honorarium, so I did for the old man, my father Harry Elliott. I miss him.

I tried lighting candles for Mr Man, who was a buff tabby, at a number of churches in Spain last year but stopped. I felt I was leaving a part of him behind and couldn’t bear it. I know now that I hadn’t come to resolution with his death. That came just a few months ago.

I had let him out the day he didn’t return, so it was my fault. But It dawned on me that he had returned to me many, many times. Wasn’t it possible he had returned when perhaps he should not have? That I was lucky and got him back the many times he had successfully escaped death? He was, after all, a cat, and he finally used up his nine lives. Maybe his death had nothing to do with me. . .

I was deeply grateful in that moment for all the times he had made it home, and the spell of guilt was broken.

With the old man it felt good to light a candle in his honor in an old Catholic Church. He would have loved seeing this place, with its 1500 years of unbroken daily prayer, cool archeological site, and beautiful religious treasures. He would have taken the audio guide, listened to every entry, including the axillary ones you have to push a special blue button for, read all the placards, and we’d still be in there, learning. God he was a terrific human being and I got to call him my dad.

As for the feet, it’s amazing what a day will do to shorten the life span of a few blisters. Tomorrow, Martigny.

See below for photos with captions.