About

Welcome to my website!

My name is Abi May. I am a walker, a retreat leader, an author, and a bereaved mother – having lost both of my children, Pax and Catherine. I run a project called “Living with Loss” which offers support for people who are struggling with grief following bereavement – I lead retreats and workshops, wrote a book, and run various websites.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned through my own grief and through supporting others is that you can really only manage life one step at a time. When the present is bleak and the future looks impossible, we get through it one moment at a time.

That’s why this blog is called “1stepcamino” – One Step Camino.

“Camino” means “Way”. It commonly refers to pilgrimage routes, in particular the routes that lead to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Pilgrimage can mean different things to different people. For me, it’s not just a long walk, but setting out with intention – whether the goal is a particular physical destination or something more internal – spiritual, mental, emotional.

I’ve done a fair amount of walking in the past years, some of which I count as pilgrimages. I am excited now to be preparing for my first long distance pilgrimage. That’s what I’ll be blogging about, but as we don’t set out until March 2020, I’ll also be telling the story of previous walks, preparation, and about the people I’m walking with.

Just a bit more about me: I live in Stoke-on-Trent in the West Midlands, United Kingdom, with my husband John. My son Pax died age 3 in 1982 from a genetic condition. Beautiful Catherine, my daughter, died age 30 in 2011 after suffering from mental illness. I am in my early 60s and not particularly healthy, as I’ve had inflammatory arthritis pretty much all of my life and I was treated for kidney cancer in 2015. That’s just to give some context and why my walks might not be as fast or as long as I would like.

This website is still under construction so please come back again soon as I update it. Also if you find mistakes or broken links, it would be really helpful if you could tell me.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy what you find here.