JACOB’S LADDER
Lorraine’s pilgrimage for her son
There were times it was so painful, she could barely move, but every step of Lorraine Thomson’s 800km pilgrimage along the famed Spanish Camino Trail held promise her terminally ill son would be healed.
Little did the Auckland author realise it would prove vital preparation for her future’s solo path after tragically losing not one but two family members soon after returning home.
As she sits in her waterfront apartment with commanding views of Auckland’s Harbour Bridge, the former fitness magazine publisher and editor tells the Weekly the 40-day trek along the ancient religious road, which is documented in her autobiographical account The French Way, was filled with challenges. Yet in the midst of turmoil, she still managed to discover the inspiration she desperately sought.
“There’s quite a lot of drama in this story,” warns Lorraine
(65), before explaining despite being physically prepared for the hike, it was scuppered on her first attempt in 2016 when
her specially worn-in gear went missing in transit. “I had to go out and buy brand-new gear, so after eight days with new shoes on, my feet were wrecked! I ended up in hospital and had to come home. I had been planning this for ages. It was soul-destroying.”
After walking just 125km of the trek and with feet so raw from blisters she couldn’t wear shoes, the injured trekker returned home, forced to postpone plans for at least a year.
“I am never one to give up – it was always my intention to go back to where I left off and carry on,” she says, adding she was first inspired to do the famous route after a family friend in her 80s successfully walked it.
Thirteen months later, she returned to the trail, at Logroño.
“It was a completely different experience,” she tells. “The first day, I was on top of the world. I walked really fast and felt amazing because I’d taken so much care.”
She continued along the remaining 675km over the next month, arriving at the village of Santiago De Compostela as rain started to lightly fall – which she believes was a heavenly sign – and in time to attend the daily pilgrim’s service at the cathedral.
For Lorraine, there was not only the accomplishment of notching up one of the world’s greatest walks, but the hope the
historic religious pathway would in some way offer a chance of health to her son Jacob, seriously ill with osteosarcoma.
“I did have this thought that every step I was taking along the Camino would be one day towards my son regaining his health,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “That was the wish I carried every single day.
I also dedicated the walk to him. You get a certificate and I gave it to him when
I got home. That was a special thing for me.”
Sadly, he died four months after she returned, aged 31.
“I always had hope that Jacob would get better.”
But then the next bombshell hit six months later when husband Ray unexpectedly suffered a fatal cardiac arrest earlier this year, aged 65.
“I didn’t in my wildest dreams expect another family member to pass away – it’s devastating,” she says of dealing with double tragedies in the space of a year.
Yet in spite of losing both her son and husband, Lorraine is determined to use the newfound direction she discovered from hours of self-reflection walking the trail.
“By putting one foot in front of the other every day, you had so much time to think. It was a time out from my busy life to reflect on the way forward. I had given up my business, which I had been running for 20 years.
It was a time of ‘what am I going to do for the next 30 years?’
I was thinking of a book that I had read called A Woman’s Place by Joan Withers. She’s a director on a number of publicly listed companies. I always used to think, ‘I want to be on the boards of companies like Joan.’ And then I wondered, ‘What’s Joan got that I haven’t? She’s got an MBA.’
“So I thought, ‘Right, I’m going to get an MBA.’ I came to that conclusion while walking the Camino.”
Now, halfway through the business masters degree, Lorraine reveals it’s stretching her, but she’s relishing it.
“The MBA is largely a mental challenge, but I’ll see it through.”
She says she’s driven to complete it to accomplish her goal of changing the business landscape to get more female representation at the top level.
“At the moment, women on listed company boards compromise 20% of board membership, which is not a very good picture for New Zealand’s diversity,” explains Lorraine.
Once she graduates with her tertiary qualification, she is hoping to find a board seat on companies related to fitness, travel and tourism.
But for now, she’s thinking her next personal goal perhaps won’t involve too much physical or mental outlay.
“It was the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life,” Lorraine asserts. “Now
I’ve walked it, I don’t think I can top it off with anything else.”