Loving the unLoveable

I met Terry whilst eating breakfast at 7.30 am having walked 10km from my nights resting place. He shouted across the tables 'Isn´t this a bloody awful walk, where nobody speaks to you- I hate it and all the people that are here', all in a broad scouse accent at 100 decibels (is that loud or not?´it was very loud!). Scouse is a colloquial term for Liverpudlian. I had been talking to 2 lovely ladies about where we were headed and this man was seething with rage and certainly interrupting the nice ambience of the place.
A conversation with him ensued in which we listened to his tale of woe of not being able to find a bed in an Albergue/ Refugio and so instead was having to stay at hotels and pay hotel prices. As a result he had got a bus that day at 6am from his hotel to this place so that he could sit outside the Albergue at 9am and wait for them to open at midday! I kid you not his camino had become ruled by the fear of not finding a bed at a cheap price and for that he had sacrificied the walking for the bed. That kind of defeats the whole point of walking The Camino- at least in my world. Only foreigners had tried to talk to him and then only for a short time as he was wasting their time. 'On the contrary' I objected, 'most of them love to practice their English on you.
A little voice prompted me to ask him if he wanted to join us on our walk and part of me was asking 'Really Lord- this man is a nightmare' My companions visablly cringed as the invitation dropped out of my mouth but Terry was delighted. Within 5 mins I found myself walking alone with this man who vented his spleen about the 'crap Camino' and how he was particularly angry at a spanish hotelier who would not give him his money back when he changed his mind about wanting a bed for the night. In his words 'If I was younger I would have pulled him over the counter and knocked the crap out of him- the Spanish git and he didn´t speak English either!' Terry wanted me to assure him that I would find him a bed at the Albergue in the next town. I said that was not my responsibility and anyway it was beyond my control.
For the first hour I listened to Terry tell me the tale of his life. He was so consumed with anger that nothing was right, no relationship had succeeded, everyone was ALWAYS nasty to him- he had parted with his best friend 10 years ago through a vicious row, he was only with his wife because he couldn´t afford a divorce, his son was ashamed of him and refused to be with him in public and nobody, NOBODY, had talked to him on this bloody Camino. He had met an Italian guy the night before and wanted to share a room with him to split the cost and even he had refused to share a room with him. Then came the phrase that melted my heart 'I have been rejected by so many people since I came here, actually it´s the story of my life´.
For the next 5 hours we walked together, him telling me of his childhood home and how much his mum had loved God and was a devout Catholic, his sister dying of cancer, his struggle in the workplace and his absent father. He was a mass of living contadictions- he didn´t drink alcohol but had beer at lunch, he didn't bring a guide book but had learnt Spanish st home in preparation for the Camino, he took buses instead of walking, which was fine but staying in hotels was 'cheating' etc.He was on the Camino having had an extraordinary dream which he then gave his own interpretation to but was hoping to make sense of it along this journey. He related his dream to the book of Revelation, but it could be many other things as he loved watching violent films. The only question he ever asked me in our whole time together over 2 days was 'Did I believe in God?'. What an opening! I took it!! Briefly!!!
The afternoon was spent with him giving me the minute details of the film Clockwork Orange. The more he told me the more I made the mental note to give it a pass, but for him it was the best film ever made. However by the time we walked into Santo Domingo, we had moved onto happier thoughts about his daughter and son and he had moved into scouse humour mode. I was creased  in laugther as I walked the last stretch. So much so that a couple of pilgrims asked me how I could laugh so much after such an exhausting walk, as they lay flaked out on benches. 'Because he is so very funny' I said. I watched Terry grow before my eyes and a smile cross his face. His comment about his daughter was that she was 'beautiful with attitude'. 'You know Terry' I said 'so are you- so are we all!'
Later that evening I saw a group of people I had met a couple of days ago and they invited me to join them for a meal- but not with Terry. (dilemma )Thankfully he was sleeping blissfully on his bed, having found at last an Albergue. During dinner one of them said they could not walk with him because he was so negative and so loud with it. She was sure I had got lots of heavenly rewards for my choices that day. Maybe I said, but I hadn´t laughed so deeply for so long for years, but also thought 'I couldn´t have walked with him 5 years ago either' and felt rather humbled by the gift that he had been to me that day that I hadn´t really wanted to accept.