Author’s note: I am not entirely sure that there *was* such thing as Father’s Day in the Shire, but for purposes of the date and the Hobbit Holidays livejournal group, there is.

Disclaimer: I do not own anyone or anything affiliated with the wonderful world of Tolkien.

This is, without a doubt, the most heart wrenching and torturous day of the year! Frodo thought sadly, his blue eyes darkening with melancholy as he eyed the happy hobbits all over Buckland. He could not help but reflect upon what he was missing.

The third Sunday in June was a day in the Shire that the hobbits traditionally used to celebrate the fathers of families. On this date, hobbit-children would fashion gifts for the parent and devise other ways to have fun with their fathers and manifest their appreciation. The third Sunday in June was a day for manifesting love and familial ties.

It was one of two days that Frodo Baggins could not celebrate, for he no longer had a father.

On Father’s Day, as the hobbits dubbed the special day for children and their paternal figures, many a hobbit male would be seen with his brood of children enjoying a picnic or few. When the happy families were not picnicking they were either playing games together, fishing, or boating. The fathers did not work, and the small lads and lasses, with the help of their mothers, made every effort to ensure their cherished father did not have to lift a finger that day.

Frodo despondently leaned against a tree, staring into the depths of the Brandywine. He could see a few adventurous fathers and sons boating along the treacherous river that had devoured his parents seven years before. A part of him wanted to call out a warning against the activity. Simply witnessing it was enough to feel as though he had been stabbed straight through the heart.

It was not just the boating. There were those who thoughtlessly inquired about Frodo’s plans for the special day before remembering he was an orphan. There was also the awkwardness of the children in Brandy Hall being gathered together by Old Rory to create crafts- this year’s was a birdhouse- only for it to be recalled too late that Frodo had nobody to whom he could give the gift. Even worse, there was the malicious bully who for some reason understandable only to himself found it necessary to cruelly ridicule him for the unusual circumstance in his life. “Happy Father’s Day, Frodo Baggins! What are your plans, to have a good cry? Are you going to make a card and throw it into the river? There was nothing he wanted more at that moment than to be able to enjoy the day with his father and shower him with lavish gifts like a normal hobbit-lad.

Why? Why did it have to be him who had lost his parents to the depths of the Brandywine? Why had he been the one to lose their love with their depth? Why did he have to be alone? Frodo figured he must have committed some abominable crime indeed in his childhood for such a misfortune to present itself in his life.

Why, why, was he doomed to be so lonely? Was there no escape?