14 May: Cizur Menor

Now here’s a story that made me feel like this:
“And she was happy right now…thinking that, after all, life was a gift – that one of those things about getting older was knowing that so many moments weren’t just moments, they were gifts…” – Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge)

“Are you the mother of the children?,” a fellow pilgrim asked, and went on to explain there was a lady with a boy outside, who wanted to see me.
Out I went to find her. Kisses on both cheeks from a complete stranger. And the promise that right at that moment her 13-year-old daughter was at home baking us a cake.
Really?
Si! She had driven past us when we were walking round the neighborhood this afternoon and she figured we were pilgrims so she visited the different pilgrim accommodations until she found us. We made a time to meet later.
Sure enough, she arrived with her youngest son Javier, the cake-baker who was also a four-language-speaker, Ines, and a couple of others who had to go home to study for exams.
What prompted her to do this? Perhaps her identification with large families – she has five children of her own and is one of eleven siblings…..but maybe it was just a heart full of love that wanted to give a generous gift.