Historical Notes:

This is a continuation of the text now known as Via Dolorosa or the Way of Sorrows which in its original form was a collection of rather voluminous notes that Frodo and Sam had written about the Quest that were not included in the Red Book itself. Brought together they form a series of what can be called nothing other than love letters, celebrating the deep friendship and brotherhood the two hobbits shared. Frodo Gardner’s grandson, Harding, came upon the astounding find quite by accident, or so it seemed, and copies of it survived the many centuries. It was my great good fortune some years ago now to be able to translate it into the modern vernacular. In its original format, it was written as one book and not separated as I have done now and chosen the name for this part of it from Frodo’s own words. The reason I did this is that it is somewhat confusing to read it as the Ring-bearer first put it down as parts of the text contradict each other or present some events in two different ways. It’s apparent from some of the hobbit’s notes that he was himself confused by the conflicting memories he had, wondering if some were merely delusions the Ring had given him and which were ones that truly happened. He knew that as his memories were stolen from him, the Ring could well have presented to him many lies it presented as truths, thus leaving Frodo at a loss at times afterwards to reconcile which were true as his memories began to return. Not all the overlapping memories were evil ones, sometimes just different, but the worst ones are the hardest to read since the ink was smudged by what could only be tears. The scribes who were translators throughout the centuries have merely guessed at points where the writing was illegible or nearly so, but nearly all historians agree that the guesses are most probably quite accurate, given the knowledge of the Ring-bearer’s temperament and style of writing which can be determined from the majority of the text that can be read. I am relying on the same for this translation.

As I said, the original text was one, but for the ease of the modern reader and my own sanity as I was translating this priceless find, I separated the two sets of memories, including for the most part here just those which differentiate sharply. For the others, the text as presented in Via will suffice. As was his custom long before the Quest even began, Frodo set down many things that trouble him, hoping that the writing of them would exorcize the demons that continued to torment him even after the Ring was destroyed. It is not known whether Sam had the same trouble with such differing memories. If he did, he did not record them, or at the least such a record has not yet been discovered.

The art was not part of the original text, but added especially for this particular translation by an admirer of the Ring-bearer named Armariel. (That can be viewed here.)

Here again then, in the Ring-bearer’s own words, a tale of a life and heart shattered by a burden far too heavy for any to have borne, even the one who had been created to do so, and of a soul horrifically wounded by confrontation with great evil. Yet it is also a tale of hope amid despair, of great love amid tears, and the struggle to seek to live not just among the ruins, but beyond them. May it bring hope and inspiration to those who struggle against the Shadow in their own hearts or those they love in our own day.

The Long Goodbye

I was reading by my favorite tree when I heard Gandalf singing Bilbo’s traveling song. It was so wonderful when he came for Bilbo’s big birthday, and mine. I joyfully leapt into his arms, just as I will when you, my most beloved Sam, come to me in the West. Perhap you will come even on your birthday. I am already waiting for that tremendous gift, no matter when you give it. I must believe that you will for I would not have the strength to leave otherwise if I do not have hope of seeing you again. I’m so sorry that traveling song must now be sung by me, but I must leave. One day, if I am so blessed, you will be singing it yourself.

I am so glad that I pushed you into Rosie’s arms at the party. That memory gives me a joy to cling to that makes my dark days a little brighter. To think, you didn’t want to do it! But oh, my dear Sam, I should not be the only lucky one to have love showered down upon me. You and Rose have given much to my days left, especially in the gift of Elanor. I try to think of that instead when I am tormented by the thought that almost none of that came to be. We nearly died, you nearly died and at my hand, if my memory is not false. The Shire would not be so blessed if you were not in it, and all those to come from the wondrous fruit of the love you and Rose share would never be. I try to think of watching you that party day, and at your wedding, and the marvelous joy and light in your face when you came to tell me that Rose was expecting, and the even brighter light when you held your daughter for the first time. I think then you could have outshone the sun! And I think of the tenderness in your face while you watched me hold her. I can scarce believe that I will soon be leaving all that behind me. Memories are going to be all I have soon. I so wish to dwell on the happier ones, but wishes do not always come true.

I wonder how I will tell you that I am leaving, but I must. I know Bilbo tried to tell me he was at the party, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. I also remember that I knew all along that he was going to leave, but it hadn’t been real until he did. What am I going to say to you, or try to say, my dearheart? Will I simply look at you and say Goodbye as he said to me? Or perhap I do not even need to say anything. Mayhap you already know. I can keep so few secrets from you. I wonder if indeed there are any left at all. I know you see my heart, scored by torment, each time you look into my eyes. Have you seen everything though? I dare not ask. I hope you have also seen all the love I have for you and the gratitude that I can never fully express in words to you. We have long passed the need for words. Sometimes I think that a great blessing, sometimes a curse, for there are things I would keep from saying out loud, but I cannot control what my heart tells you. I have seen your heart also and you have never refrained from speaking to me there. I hope somehow when the two speak you will understand how much I treasure you and how sorrowful I am that we must soon part. Still our hearts never will let go. You have held me there so long that I cannot believe that anything will ever come between us. That embrace has not faltered even on our terrible Road, and if it did not then, then not even the depth and breadth of the Sea can do it. It will separate only our bodies, my brother, and that will be torment enough, but just as we will grow at first further and further apart, one day it will draw us closer and closer.

Gandalf told me that hobbits are amazing creatures and I must agree, for you, Merry and Pippin are the most amazing who ever lived! Oh, my Sam, what you endured on my behalf, and what you accomplished out of love for me. I am glad to be leaving such a testament of your sacrifices and your love in the Red Book that I hope will be read for many an age, though I do fear it will also embarrass you mightily. Nonetheless, just as you imagined there be clamoring to hear about me, I imagined there will be even more begging to hear about you, so I must not disappoint our future audience, can I? I must celebrate you and also Merry for striking down the Witch-king and Pippin for saving Faramir’s life. Amazing indeed.

Still I grieve that the Ring ever came to Bilbo, or to me, though good also come out of our journey. If it had not come to me, we would not have left. If we had not left, the Nazgul would still be abroad and Faramir would be dead. Because we left, the Ring is now gone from the world, and so are its maker and his servants, Eowyn’s heart is healed of woe because Faramir yet lives. The Shire is safe because you would not leave me to face my trials alone. Soon I hope the Ring will also be gone from my heart, its last slave healed. I hope it will be banished from Bilbo’s also.

Bless you, my own, for eavesdropping the night that Gandalf told us its terrible story. Even now in all my pain, remembering you being hauled in through the window brings a smile to my face. I was so frightened before then, begging Gandalf to take it, but he would not. I felt then the terrible weight descend on my heart when I asked him what I had to do, but to lighten the weight he had you come with me, my loyal, stouthearted Sam, to help me carry the burden.

My memories are so confused as to what follows though. At once I remember leaving with you and Pippin while Merry took the cart to Crickhollow, and Gandalf still had not returned as he had promised, but I also remember him sending us two off together and traveling far through the Shire with only each other as companions. Either way, I still marvel that I have been blessed with such loving ones as you have all been for me. You and I were on the most desperate errand, but in the beginning, if our thoughts could be turned otherwise, it could have almost been just another jaunt. We saw and heard the Wood-elves singing and going to the Havens and you remarked that you didn’t know why that made you sad. I know, and soon you will too which grieves me each time I think of it. It meant they were leaving forever, just as I will be soon doing. I think as I put all these words down, it is a sort of a long goodbye to you, to the Shire, to everything I have ever known. Perhap though I will meet those Elves where I am going and so remember the night we saw them and tell them we did. I wonder if they were of Gildor’s company for I most definitely remember staying the night with his company, but these we just watched as they passed. More and more the Elves are leaving, and more and more the longing grows in me to follow, and the sorrow that I must leave you and all but Bilbo behind to seek healing that cannot be found here. Perhap I will one day see you there as well, you who were once afraid not to take one step more or you would be further than you have ever been. Oh, my Sam, how far you have walked with me, and how far I must now walk alone. No, not quite alone. Bilbo will be there and Gandalf and the Lady and Lord Elrond. I don’t think I could bear leaving if Bilbo would not be there. I still marvel that I can bear leaving at all, knowing I will leave you, Merry and Pippin behind. Are you going to be willing to go even farther when the times comes, and so far over the water? I wonder about that at times during the night when the fears are the worst and the terrible longing to leave and be away from all that has hurt me is so strong I can barely breathe, but I know that since you have already almost drowned to be with me and walked farther than any hobbit ever has, then you will indeed follow after me. That momentary assurance allows me to sleep a little more comfortably, drowning the other longing that still consumes me.

Oh, my poor Sam, you had so much trouble sleeping our first night away, fretting about not being able to find any right spot among the tree roots. I told you that you should imagine instead that you were in your own bed with a soft mattress and pillows, but you could not. I smile and frown now, thinking perhap it is better not to have such an active imagination as I have, or mayhap it is better so. I will need one after I leave I think, traveling so far from home and knowing I will not return. How long will we be on the boat? What will our new home look like? How often will I wish I was in my own bed just like I counseled you to imagine? Many times I’m sure. How often will I wish you were beside me as you were then? Many more times..

You were afraid you had lost me in the cornfield. Do not be so, my own, in the time soon to come when I will be much longer away from your sight than just a few moments. I will always be with you, and you will always be with me. It is just that we will be lost to each other’s eyes for a bit, absent from each other’s bodily arms, but never doubt I will still hold you and that I will feel you holding me. I must write this in all the ways I can to convince myself also, for the voices that come to me at night whisper, scream and howl that this is the end, that you will never forgive me, that you will never love me again, that you will never come. I know they are wrong, or so I tell myself over and over again, wishing to wail louder than they just to drown them out. So I do in my heart and long to do out loud, but what a pitiful, mournful sound that would make and I have no wish for anyone to hear it. I know you already do, for you always hear what is in my heart. You come to me during the night and take my hands from where they have covered my ears in a vain attempt to keep the voices out that are already within. There in the moonlight, you hold my hands, look into my eyes, into my heart, face the hideous forms that the voices take. You do battle there without saying a word, staring at them unflinchingly as they fall silent before you and then flee in defeat. They return, they always do, and you do battle once more. I must not believe their lies, but your love. I wonder though how much new strength they will gather once you are gone and cannot come to combat them as you do now. I can sense them just waiting for that. And yet I must leave, I must take the chance they are waiting for. I must believe you will be with me to defeat them even then, or that others will fight them on your behalf and mine. I think you will be there, my brother. I think I will still sense you fighting for me, even if you are doing it in the parlour or the garden while I am laying in bed, untold miles away. You said you did not mean to lose me. You never will, my Sam. I will hold you and myself to that.

Another memory that is almost the same but not quite so is when the Black Rider came to us in the woods. But was Merry there then? In one way, I remember he was, and another he wasn’t. In one way, you, Pippin and I had a very nice dinner at Farmer Maggot’s and another it was Pippin and Merry who ran into us after robbing his fields just like I used to do as a lad. I don’t know which is true, but both times you saved me. It was you I remember saying you heard a horse coming and that is why we hid, or was it because I stood alone while you three went after mushrooms and watched the very air swirling in front of me as though it could not bear to be around the evil that was approaching and wished to flee from it? Either way the three of us or the four of us hid only just in time. I remember both times the compulsion to put on the Ring that one time you broke by knocking my arm. How did you know I was in such trouble? How do you always know? Because you held my heart, always have and always will. How have I been so fortunate? I suppose it does not matter which memory was true, since either way, if you had not been there, the Quest would have ended right then, if the Rider not moved away.

We were able to escape, all of us, but barely. This is another part that confuses me for I remember a peaceful crossing of the Brandywine, and also being chased so closely by the wraith that I barely made it to the Ferry. I wonder if I am going mad with all this conflict within me. One thing I want to remember from this terrible time is that you held out your arms to catch me as I ran and jumped to you, evading pursuit for a short while. I had never been so frightened in my life. Farmer Maggot’s dogs were the worst terror I had suffered before then. Both times you were there to defend and protect me. I wonder when I go West, who will be there to catch me? Bilbo, Gandalf or the Lady or Lord Elrond? They would all try, but would they be able to stop me from falling as you have while I remain in your arms, or as Merry and Pippin have? Or will I just fall through them and keep falling to the very bottom of the world where things crawl in the night that not even nightmares can conjure? I know Bilbo can and will catch me, and Gandalf. The Lord and Lady have already helped me so much. Will it be enough?

How I wish I could just stay with you and my other brothers. I know I cannot. I need to be whole, instead of becoming more and more a wraith everyday. It is not the Shadow world that I saw when I put on the Ring at the Pony that I will enter if I do not leave, but a fearful place all the same. At the inn, the Enemy told me was no life in the void, only death. I know that to be true for I have long stood at its borders and have been inside that terrifying place more than once. He told me I could not hide, that he could see me. I must go where he cannot, or where I hope he cannot, where I can hide and heal, away from his presence. In such a blessed place, the Shadow shall fade and fall away from my heart. So I must believe or all this will be in vain. I will not have that be so.

Your challenge to the wraiths on Weathertop is the same you silently give to the voices when my heart cries out to you. Sometimes I wonder how you can hear me when their shouts are so loud. They hear me too and scream that I am all alone with them, that you will never hear, that you will never come. I do not know why I believe them because you always do and they always flee. Those wraiths you have power over, but neither you, nor Merry and Pippin could protect me from the Riders. They were too much for any of us. I remember you holding my hand after I was wounded. I was so afraid, in so much pain, but there you were for me, as always. It made it better. I remember Strider telling me to hold on when he took me over his shoulder. I remember crying out for Gandalf, wishing for his familiar presence instead. I wish I could tell our king now that I will hold on.

The days that followed I do not wish to remember, but sometimes it is those days I see the most, even at times with my waking eyes. The mist was gathering around me. I heard the cries of the Riders and I remember trying to answer them. Their cries at time still echo in my mind, but only as echoes. Our flight to Rivendell is another time that is so confusing to me. Both times I remember seeing an Elf as bright as any would be in the West, but sometimes it is Glorfindel and sometimes it our queen. Sometimes I am riding Asfaloth alone, sometimes she is holding me. Sometimes I see the wraiths so very close, reaching out for me, for the Ring. Sometimes I dream they succeed and I am left alone without it. Those nights when you come rushing in from my screams and I hold you so desperately, it is then that I most wish you cannot tell what caused such terror.

Perhap what happened with the queen is but a dream, but it is one I wish to be true. I remember after we crossed the Ford she held me in her arms. I was nearly lost then, but I felt grief and love expressed to me so strongly that new strength poured into me, even as I stood on the threshold of the Shadow world. Or did the strength come from calling upon Elbereth and Luthien which I also remember? I don’t think I would have endured if not for that. I suppose this is another time, it does not matter who rescued me, just that I was blessed to have such care shown to me. Still I wish I could know.

The time in Rivendell, the joyful reunions with Gandalf, you, Merry, Pippin and Bilbo are ones I will always treasure and such love the Ring cannot mar with any false memories. I remember talking to you, longing to go home as much as you do, but then us both discovering that the Road home was not going to be an easy one to take, if we got home at all. I remember the Council and here the Ring again intrudes, or so I believe, for a terrible argument ensues which I wonder truly happened. I was only aware of the Ring. I had felt it when Gimli struck at it with his axe, as though I had been struck myself. That bond still remains. It is gone and I am left bereft of it, as though part of myself, a great part, is now missing and I must go on with the emptiness that is inside which nothing can fill, a great hunger gnawing at me that nothing can satisfy. If this is not madness, I do not wish to know what else would bring it upon me.

Yet, there is one memory I still wish to keep from what may not be real. I remember Strider pledging his aid, whether by life or death, at the Pony, but I also remember it here. That my king would kneel to me! That cannot have come from the Ring for it could have never understood such a loving and humble gesture. I remember Gandalf assuring me at Bag End that he would help me carry the burden, but I also remember him saying it here. Here Legolas and Gimli also pledge themselves. The night is falling fast, but I can remember being blessed once more by strangers offering themselves to keep me safe, shining stars in the black. What have I done to deserve such wealth as I have found in these friends? Of course, you and Merry and Pippin were not to be left out either. I can always smile at that, especially at Pippin’s words and your stout loyalty, even if it’s not as full as any of us would wish.

There is also the happy memory on our way to Mordor of Boromir teaching Merry and Pippin how to use their swords and how they managed to overwhelm both he and Aragorn. I smiled, enjoying the moment and the happiness my brother-cousins have ever brought me. I will be missing so much when I leave, so very much. Anytime I remember now, I cannot have peace for more than a moment, before I think also of all that I will not see. There is a bittersweet pain that I know well for I felt it so often after my parents died. Such a combination of happy memory and sorrow for the loss and the knowledge that new memories will not be created lingers even now, but nowhere as sharp as it was. I can have hope then that I will remember all the happy times I had with you three parts of my heart with something other than pain for all the other memories that I will be robbing us both of because I am not there.

There are also unhappy memories following shortly upon that swordplay when we were still innocent enough, all of us, to enjoy it. Boromir was nearly taken by the Ring when he found it in the snow where it had fallen from me when I tumbled. I watched him fearfully, not knowing what would happen, no longer seeing a friend and ally. Strider saved us once more. I took the Ring back, loathing it and needing it. It was mine, though I knew it was not. It so preyed upon Boromir. Anytime I fear whether he found peace, I think of Faramir’s words, that he looked more beautiful in death, than in life. He had indeed found his peace. I must know seek my own.

I do not know what is worse: the fire that continues to burn me or the cold that was Caradhras. Sometimes I wish I could just lay myself down there to try to quench the flames. When the pain is the most unbearable, I wish I could lay there until I am frozen, eyes open but no longer seeing.Yet when I am strong enough to do so, I remember Gandalf’s words to me on the way to Moria. When I asked him who I could trust when he feared the Ring would work its evil even within the Company, he said, that I must trust myself and my own strengths. I am horribly weak, but I am strong when I am with you. You, my dearest Sam, are my strength. I can trust myself to be strong when you come to me, place your hand on my shoulder, a different kind of warmth and that does more for a moment than any cold could. We don’t talk anymore about what happened, what is still happening, but we don’t need to. You know all my secrets, or I fancy you do, even if you do not understand them all, even if I do not. You just stand there and let your hand speak to me, or your smile or your lips as they brush against my brow. How much we have spoken, how much love you have given me, how much forgiveness, how much torment I have poured out and you have absorbed and grieved for and still loved me through it, all without a word being said. I know you will continue to lend me your strength even after I leave. You will not abandon me.

It is in the Mines that my memory grows confused again. How can I remember talking to Gandalf about Smeagol and my wish the Ring had never come to me at Bag End but also in the dark halls of Moria? He called me to task about my lack of pity for that wretched creature who I could have been, would have been, if I had borne the Ring longer. I remember that from both times. Did he have to tell me twice? Was I that hard in heart? I know I was. I sometimes think if only Smeagol had had a Sam like I do, then he would not have become who he did, but then I remember he did, or some semblance of such a one, and killed him for the Ring. I almost tried to kill you, or so I remember, another which I hope is just a vile lie from the Ring. I know what pity is now. I pity anyone, even the Dark Lord himself, for I know now what it feels like to be devoured by the night and have only blackness for light.

But Gandalf told me - twice also, seemingly - that I was also meant to bear the Ring, and that were other powers in the world other those that work evil. I think that is something I also needed to hear more than once, for if I was truly meant to bear such a terrible burden, then it was not at the will of the Enemy. Some other will desired it. I do not know what, but if Gandalf deemed it encouraging to think of, then it must be a good power beyond our ken, glimpsed at only through a very dark glass, as I felt at different points on our terrible road.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” That is another thing I’ve heard - twice - and many more times than that as I repeated it over and over to myself on our terrible journey. Even after the memory of his words was stolen from me, still the imprint somehow still lingered, even if I could not recall the words. You were living them out beside me and that allowed me to keep going, long after I would have given up, as faded away as those words would have become if you were not there to be them further testament. I repeat them to myself now in terrible affirmation for what must be. Soon, my own dearest Sam, this one choice will come crashing down on you, as it on me these long months until sometimes I wonder how I can bear its weight, then I think of the heavier weight that would crush me if I do not. Still in the end, I hope you will make one more decision, and that is to come to me, and I will truly know that I have been forgiven for this choice just as I have been forgiven all my others, always loved beyond measure.

I remember your fearful look watching me as we fled the Balrog and Aragorn and I were the last to join the rest of the Company after part of the Bridge began to crumble. I also remember that fear came from your love. Always you have watched me and over me, and I hope, even after we have parted, I will feel your gaze in my heart, still watching. I do not think I could bear leaving if I did not have that hope to sustain me and strengthen me. You will do that, won’t you? Of course you will. I know you will because you would not be my Sam if you did not. I whisper that over and over to the voices that come in the night to torment me that you will hate me for abandoning you when you did not abandon me, that I am betraying and making naught all the suffering you endured for me that you did not need to but only did because you loved me. Is it not so much that I should endure the same to remain by you? they ask. But my pain is not your pain. You have not this lingering torment in the houses of lamentation that I bring you into each time you look into my eyes. You would stay here with me as long as I am held prisoner, but for both of us to be free, we cannot remain together. I would not have you stay here for my sake, though I know you would willingly and lovingly, but in the end, if I do not leave, it would be for naught. I could not bear to subject you to that. I am unable to hide from you my agony, but I do not know if you truly see its source, the bitter longing, the terrible, lingering loss of self and light and life. I think our lady queen did for she gave me the gem and the other gift that fills with me awe, fear and hope that is so desperate that I am cut by it, even as I reach it despite the pain it causes me. It is agony onto itself, just as sharp or almost so as the Ring, for to be free of that fell thing, I must also declare myself from the Shire, from all Middle-earth, free from you and there lies the pain. I lay at night unable to sleep torn by these two overwhelming desires, longing for both, destroyed by one and sustained by the other even as it causes pain. I am naught but a shell now, filled with nothing but these two powers, and your love which is a solace and a pain of its own for I must betray it, or seemingly so. You continue to shelter me and nurture me as though I am whole, or will be if you look after me long enough. I cannot tell you yet that all your efforts have been, no, not in vain, for you have kept me alive through this torment, but it is not enough. How horrible those words are to say, to write, to look at, to think of. Only seeing them here now, black on pale parchment, do they have a finality to them, a terrible and indelible reality. I raise my hand to strike them through, to burn them, but I do not. They have been written and I wept over them. Perhap that will be enough to smear them so you cannot ever read them, so you cannot ever think you have failed me.

I must leave, for just as Gandalf fought the Balrog, I must fight my own battle against which would destroy me. Just before Gandalf fell, he looked at me, accepting that further struggle was useless. Then he was lost to us all and I screamed out my grief. Will I look at you and my other brothers in such a way before I fall away from you? Will I hear your cries of grief? Will you hear mine? I cannot fight here any longer for my old life, just as he came to realize the same thing about himself. For us both, that has ended, but just as Gandalf’s fall was not the end of him, my fall away from you will not be either. We must suffer this time apart, just as we had to suffer through time apart from him, so we can be healed and made whole again, tried through fire and made all the stronger, just as he was. I must believe that the agony of his death that tore into all of us and was relieved by the joy of his return will also replace this lingering pain as I hope to come alive again myself. I must believe the torments of the Quest have not been in vain, for I know they are not. Watching happily as our king was crowned and you so joyfully married, holding Elanor in my arms like the proud uncle that I am, smiling when I can at Merry and Pippin, hearing the happy shouts of Shire lasses and lads, none of that would be if I had not endured - if you had not endured with me. I must believe I will outlast this pain as well, for if I did not believe, if I did not hope, if I am beguiled by the whispers in the night that I will never heal than I would not leave, and I will leave, I must leave.

I look at those words now and they seem to me foolish, brave words meant to strengthen a quaking heart but no more than a dream that will not last beyond waking. But I must tell myself such is naught but lies. The truth must be that even though I will not die as Gandalf did, I will live again, and you will live, and Merry and Pippin will live, differently than we ever thought we would, but still life it will be. That must be the dream that will know no awakening, because it is more than a dream.

I know I should not blame myself for Gandalf’s death, but still it haunts me that I was the one who advocated going into the mines. Or was I? I hear myself clearly saying that, but I also remember Gandalf himself calling for it. It is an old pain, but it is mostly a phantom one since he has returned to us, well and whole. I did not cause him to be lost for ever, but sometimes the voices taunt me with that also, with all my failures and misdeeds, such as when in my dreams I see the faces of you and my brother-cousins looking at me when Aragorn argued with Haldir whether we could go further into Lorien. I feel again the shame and blame I felt then, for what I thought I saw reflected in all your eyes. Soft whispers and harsh shouts come from you three then and I thrash in the nightmare, only realizing such things are false when you again come to me, soothing me, holding me, rocking me until I can fall back to sleep again, sometimes in your arms, sometimes with you holding my hand while you slumber in the chair next to me, sometimes merely needing to brush my brow with a kiss and leaving me for your own bed. You always know exactly what is needed. Even if I grew hoarse from thanking you, I knew you would only smile and kiss my head and tell me without so many words that you don’t need any thanks, that you are only doing what you have always done and always will and are glad to do it. Still each night, I do thank you.

Memories of the Lady Galadriel also come to me in the night. I remember her telling me that to bear a Ring is to be alone and even now that is so proved, but for the moments you hold me. I sat alone from the all the others the night we heard the Elves lament the fall of Gandalf. I was alone when the Lady called me to her Mirror, though that is another thing that confuses me since I also remember you being with me and looking into the Mirror before I did, before I saw the Eye. Not all those memories are evil for even as I admitted my fear to the Lady, she leaned down to strengthen me. I knew what I had to do then and I know what I have to do now. I was afraid then and I am still, but less than before. I am most fearful of telling you and seeing the grief in your eyes, and I am a little afraid for myself, but I have fought most of that fear alone in bed and have come to accept what must be, hoping for it as much as I am dreading it. How can it be both I wonder? She told me even the smallest person could change the course of the future, and I know that is true, for I have seen it proved in you, Merry, Pippin, and Smeagol. I could have changed it also, and for the worse, but was spared from doing so.

I will always remember the Lady’s gifts to me at our farewell, her kiss and her phial that I look upon at times, shaped like a teardrop, filled with light and water, your light and my tears. A light for me in dark places she said. But you have been a greater lighter in all the dark places I still tread, and since I do, you do also. I remember two songs as we left - hers which I have come to understand was sung to me about the gift that is before me, that I must unwrap in pain and hope - and another from other Elves. Hers I have heard run through my mind in the darkest nights when you are not here, when I go out to the mallorn and stare up at the stars, when I look West and think of the journey that is to come when I must part from you and my other brothers. What awaits me I cannot imagine. No mortal of this age has been so blessed. I have traveled far in my dreams, sometimes so real, it is painful to wake again in my own bed with the darkness still around me, and the pain still gnawing at me. I weep then in the morning light when I see such familiar sights, for the loss of strange and wondrous ones, for sounds and smells that were so clear, and beautiful that then slip through my fingers like moonlight. So long have I grieved that I must go, and now at times I grieve that I have not yet gone, that my body has not followed where my spirit at time dwells. How can I mourn that I am still tied here where you are, my own Sam? How can I so long to be free to truly remain where my dreams take me? Yet I do, and those are more tears that I cannot explain to you.

Nothing gets past you though, my dearest heart, even things I have tried to hide, like when you told me after we had left the Golden Wood that you noticed I hadn’t eaten or slept. Such was the effect the Ring had on me, even now, though sometimes it is pure exhaustion outside of any will of mine that sends me into oblivion for a brief time and you know it is all right to leave me be for a while. I do my best to eat when is placed before me, which is always much less than would be proper for a hobbit, but is just the right amount that you and Rose both know I can tolerate. I know you two are always pleased when I can finish, and I long to see your smiles. I wish I could will myself to sleep as I force myself to eat since I know you will not sleep easily if I do not. I cannot send you away as easily now as I did then in the woods. I wonder if Rose knows what a blessing she has in you. I certainly know what a blessing she has been to me, to have such a loving, open and tender heart allow her own arms to be empty for the greater measure of some nights because she knows how desperately I need solace more than she. If not for her compassion and pity, I would not have survived this trial as the memories of our terrible Road continue to overwhelm me.

Yet not all of them are evil. There is one I have after the terror and grief of Boromir’s fall and the terrible struggle with the Eye that I wish to keep. I cannot disown any of them, the horrible or the beautiful. Time will heal the ones that need so or so I must believe from what has come from such before. The ones filled with love will not fade and that too I must believe. One of the beautiful ones is when Aragorn came to me after Boromir and nearly the Eye found me. When I was afraid he too had come to wrest the Ring from me, he instead knelt before me, and closed my fist around it when I held it out openly to him, returning it to near where it had lain against my heart and was becoming one with it. His loving gaze and words helped provide a balm for the pain and fear of Boromir’s fall. Softly he told me he would have gone with me to the end and I knew he was true and faithful, a king among men long before he was crowned. How blessed I have been to have known such love from him.

Yet I knew or thought I knew that I had to be bereft of such comfort and company if I were to fulfill the Quest before anyone else I loved came to be tormented and fall to the temptation of the Ring. I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to you or Merry or Pippin or anyone else I loved I asked Aragorn to take of all of them, especially you. They needed to understand they would be far safer with him than me. I felt tremendous fear when I was fleeing the Orcs that were so close by. Merry and Pippin waved for me to come to me, but I could not. At least I was able to let them know I was going away and never was I more proud and more afraid for them when they jumped out of their hiding place to lure the Orcs away from me. I knew it was likely to be my last sight of them, but I would not have their sacrifice be in vain. They made my escape to the boats possible.

I stood on the riverbank, so afraid I was in tears at the thought of going on alone. Is that what the next escape over the water will feel like? Leaving so many I love on one side while I travel to the other? How much I wished we were all safe at home. Then Gandalf’s words reached me again about deciding what to do with the time that is given. It was no mere memory since this time his words were addressed directly to me as he had not before. So many times when I have needed counsel and help in the most desperate straits he has been there for me. He will travel with me again when Bilbo and I leave. I will need that. New strength and resolve filled me as I heard his beloved voice at the waterside, giving me the courage I needed. The fear had not left, but neither was it holding me back. I pushed the boat from the shore and jumped in. But not in time to stop you, my dear one.

I did not turn when I heard you call after me. Softly I denied you, words you could have not heard, but only seen as I continued to row away from you. It was as though I was leaving a part of myself behind, but still I tried. I had to leave and I had to leave alone. The danger and burden was mine alone to bear. Merry and Pippin understood this, as they let me go. I know you would not wish to, yet you will all have to soon when I must continue on my own.

You kept calling out to me and I heard a splash behind me. My heart sank and rose at the same time. I turned around. You were as determined to follow me as I was to leave you behind, just as willingly imperiling yourself for my sake as my cousins.

“Go back, Sam!” I called out. “I’m going to Mordor alone.”

“Of course you are and I’m coming with you!”

Oh, my heart, how terribly stubborn you can be at times! I can smile now at that, but I realized anew as you splashed about and began to sink how much danger that was putting you in. I screamed your name and began to frantically turn the boat around so I could reach you. I couldn’t lose you the same way I lost my parents and have another hole torn into my heart. Panic I think gave me the extra strength and speed I needed.

What relief filled me when I felt your hand clasp mine and I pulled you into the boat, nearly drowned, completely soaked and bedraggled. You had never looked so beautiful to me. You told me that you didn’t wish to break your promise of never leaving me. That is how I know you will stay with me even after I leave you because you keep your promises. You are ready to die to keep them. I was so moved I was in tears at the sacrifice you nearly made for me. Even though we were surrounded by the enemy, nothing was more important to us right then than holding each other for a long moment, I treasuring your love more than ever. I then looked at you, reassuring myself that you were all right before we continued on. Indeed we were meant to go together, for how could either of us leave half of our selves behind? How can I even contemplate, let alone decide to do that now? You have always been hope as you were then when I said it was unlikely we would see any of the others again. You said that we may and you were right. It is across another water that I will cross soon and you cannot come this time, my Sam. Not yet. But we may see each other again. We just may.

It is likely I will be the only hobbit on the blessed isle for a long while, for I fear Bilbo will not linger long. But then again I will not be. We are so intertwined now I think your heart and spirit will see that world long before your feet stand on their sands. You will listen to the waves, just as I have. I hear them so often now, at times lulling me gently to sleep, at other times drawing me away, separating me from the terrible storm that tosses me apart. No boat is there for me in that storm, I am alone and unsheltered as the waves crash down upon me. I think of my parents and how they must have felt. I think of Isildur. I think of you. Then when it seems that I will join you all under the waves, a hand reaches for me like I reached for you, and more than a hand, arms wrap around me, holding me above the water, cradling me so I do not have to struggle, so I can breathe again. I rest then against a strong chest and a mighty but gentle heartbreat lulls me back to sleep. Why am I so blessed, my Sam? I hope such will come to you too when it is you turn to cross for I know how much you hate the water. I know also though how much you love me, ever greater, the same as I love you. You will come.

In the Emyn Muil, I was startled out of a dream about Gandalf and woke to hear your concerned voice and feel your hand on my shoulder. It took a while for my racing heart to settle and I was glad my back was to you as I tried to sort out what I just saw. It had seemed so real, but it was just a dream. Gandalf was gone. You and I were alone. I lay back down, trying to calm myself enough to go back to sleep, but though my body cried for it, it did not come, just as it does not come many nights now.

Do you know how many of them I have lain awake, waiting for the dawn to come so I can sleep without the dark around me and all its phantoms? I know you do. I do not stay up until all hours in the study writing anymore. You never approved of that, gently setting your hand on my shoulder when you wished me to go to bed and not leaving until I did and you saw me safely under covers, my brow kissed and my ears hearing those sweet words of how much you loved me. How many nights to come must I go without that? I tried in the beginning to get around your unspoken prohibition of being up too late by writing in my room. When I heard your soft steps in the hall, I’d hurriedly douse the lamp and get into the bed and pretend I was asleep. I know I fooled you naught for a moment, but you have never taken me to task, just kissed me again and left the door open a bit so you would know if I got up again. So now I lie awake doing nothing but thinking of it as I so often do even when awake, seeing nothing but the shadows on the wall and in my heart, hearing nothing but its whispers, feeling nothing but the terrible burning, touching nothing but the emptiness where it had once lain. Smeagol was right that once it takes hold, it does not let go. I think, I hope, that is one secret I have been able to keep from you when all the others are laid bare, or have you guessed the truth about the devastation I know you see whenever you look at me? Even a stray glance in a looking glass reveals it to me, but I know it is there. Do you?

I could never count how many times I have wished the Ring had never been forged, that its fire not burned me, or that it continues to do so. It touched you as well but not as deeply as it has me. That is something I will be forever grateful, even as I am grateful that it is touched you enough that you will be given the same boon I have been. I tremble to see such terrible words written so starkly. How could anyone but one mad feel grateful for an evil to have happened? I am not glad it touched me. I have screamed soundlessly in the night for that, for what I have lost, not just a finger, but my very self. How many times those screams have wanted to be given voice, so that I must hold my fist against my mouth to deny them. You always hear them nonetheless and come to me. I put my mouth then against your shoulder in an attempt to stifle what so very much wants to come out. More than once you have stiffened at that, the memory of Gollum’s teeth there recalled instantly and I grieve that I have hurt you once more. I try to tell you how sorry I am, but you will have none of it, relaxing a moment later and smiling at me. You then take me up into your arms as though I were a child and go out to where the mallorn grows. We have learned that this is only place that can give me any peace when the torment is worst. You lay my head against your shoulder and hold me tight as my muffled screams find release at last. I wonder if you know what they are for? Once they are spent for a moment, you continue to hold me, stroking my curls, sometimes softly singing an Elven lullaby. Calmed by the nearness of you and the tree, and the Elvish stars above, you later carry me back to my own bed. Others times I fall asleep by the tree, still in your arms and wake when the morn comes to find you still with me. Such a blessing my heart often begs, but I dare not speak aloud for you belong at night with Rose, not with such a broken one. Still you always hear me and never grudge to answer. I listen to your heartbeat, treasuring every single one, knowing that soon it will long before I hear such again. I wonder again and again how I will ever find the strength to leave you, but I know I must leave one refuge to seek another. I will find the strength where I found it to endure the Quest, thus I lay still until you rouse and we go back together, your hand in mine.

It will not always be this way. Perhaps where I am going there will be mallorn trees as well and I will sleep under them and think of you, not in torment, but in gratitude and feel a little closer to you, knowing there is another tree so close to home, so close to you. I will have you see me free of all that now bows me down. That I promise you, my life and hope. You nearly gave your life to save me. I will not have that be in vain. I will leave this void of death. I will find life and light again, not just in your eyes, but in myself so you can see in my eyes and heart what I see in yours. I do not know how long it will take, but I know that I must find the path, even if I wander long in circles, lost among the rocks as we were in the Emyn Muil. I will find strength in the some of the same places I found it before, my own will to heal so you can see something other than torment in me, and your will to keep me on my Road. This is another thing I must write out and promise myself, looking at the words and taking them into myself, saying them softly aloud when I do not think you will hear or mouthing them when I am afraid you may. I must do so to battle the voices myself when they tell me that I will never heal, that I will never be whole again, that torment will be all that I will ever know until as Boromir told me I will be begging for death. In my darkest moments, when I am curled around myself, clenching my hands to my ears, and so crushed in spirit I cannot do naught but listen to their screams, I do long for death. When the weakness passes I realize what I truly long for is silence. There are other ways to achieve that. There must be. I do not wish to die. I wish to be free.

Sometimes I grasp the gem from our queen so tightly that I am glad you cannot see the inside of my hand where my nails have cut into the skin, though somehow I think you are still aware, for my dearest Sam, so very little escapes you. But even with all you see, you still love me, you always have a sweet smile for me, arms to shelter me, words to comfort me, kisses to bless me. I think you would love me even if you knew about the fire that still burns within for you saw it burning many times while we were on our terrible Road.

Another one who knew of that was Smeagol. He and I were so alike, are still so alike. I realized that fully when I lay awake, mesmerized by our Ring, stroking it, needing it, and all the while feeling myself violated by it, but unable to tear myself from it, not even wishing to. I was a moth fascinated by a flame, dancing with it, and then getting too close and being engulfed by it. I knew then I was lost. I thought I was alone with it, then I heard my brother... I look at that word and know if you ever see it will seem strange and you will not want to understand or believe, you may even be angry or hurt, but you have already told me that you saw that he and I were akin to each other. I know from the way my heart responds to that same word that he was that, my twin even, both of us entwined around the Ring and ruined by lust for it, driven slowly mad with that desire within us. I thought while you slept I was safe to expose what was devastating me, that kept me from sleeping, from wanting anything besides being with it. I am glad you will never know, my Sam, what it was like to be taken by it, to desire it so very much and to feel it ruin me and still to desire it all the more, and all the while to remain committed to destroying it. Then I heard Smeagol say aloud the same words I was mouthing to my...our...treasure and stroking his empty palm in the same lust that was burning me. His words startled me, woke me from the trance it had wove around me. I hid it and came beside him. That night I began to love him, born of pity and compassion and the oneness we shared through what was destroying us. I watched and heard the wonder in his eyes and voice as I called him Smeagol, something he had not been called in so very long. He began to remember he had been someone else once before he become enslaved to the Ring. So did I. That’s when I began to want to save him if I could. He had been pulled under but for a moment he was no longer drowning, just as I had been pulled under that night and before when the Ring pulled me under the water. The first time it had been my body drowning, the second time my spirit. He saved both times, just as you did when the wraith came.

I remember you holding my hand in the Marshes when it came seeking us. I would have given into the power of the Ring had you not been there. Horrible as that time was, you told me it was all right and it was because you said it was, because you were there. All the time on the Quest you kept assuring me that it was all right and I treasure every time you did. I can smile even now thinking of that, wrapping myself around those words as with a blanket, far more reassuring and comforting than any cloth. You spoke them in times of trial that I can do nothing but wonder how we ever survived. Only I think because you said them. Who is going to tell me that when you are gone? You were going to follow me through the Black Gate itself, but you cannot follow me into the West. Not yet. But even so, I will hear your words, not just as memory, but as new trials come that must be surmounted. That is how I will conquer them. You will be there in my heart, encouraging me, supporting me, telling them it is all right even when it seems not to be. It will be because you say it is. That will keep me climbing down the Mountain. You have followed me onto such dark Roads. I know you will be with me on this one as well, and instead of growing darkness, there will be growing light. We will stand together at the base of the Mountain when all is done and stare up at its cloud-shrouded peak and marvel that we descended so far.

I did not ask that you come with me through the terrible teeth that were the Gate. I still wished to spare you the death that would come if you followed, but you had already proved that you would rather die with me than live without me. You proved it again here, or would have, if Smeagol had not stopped both of us. I could not have a truer friend than you, my own, but soon you will have to learn to live without me, than die with me, and I without you. It will not be easy, not until we realize that we have not truly left each other. How long that will take I do not know. I remember so many nights after my parents died that I could feel nothing but the horrible void their absence left me. All the light in the world went out from around me and in me. I was nothing but a shell. Then Merry came and the light slowly returned. The memories became less sharp when I shared more and more of them with him. Though at first they could still draw blood, later they drew smiles and memories of joy and love. So it will be in the times to come. This will be the second time Merry has had to learn to live without me. You and Pippin have not yet, but you shall, and I shall have to relearn what it is without my Merry constantly in my life, and learn for the first time what it is to be without my Pipsqueak and without you. You already know what it is like to lose a mum and also what it is like to recover from such a loss. I know you will recover from this one too. I hate that I will be the one giving you all this wound, but it will heal.

I know I hurt you when I trusted Smeagol when he said there was another way into Mordor besides the Gate. I had to trust him. He had remained true. I had to believe he was going to continue to be, even though I knew he would turn on us, if he knew the true nature of our errand. I wish, oh, how I wish, that I had never hurt you, my beloved Sam, though I know I did many times. It is an additional stab to my heart each time I think of it, though I know you have forgiven me each time I stabbed yours. But the burden was growing heavier all the time. I had to go on before it grew more than I could bear.

I know you wondered why I defended Smeagol against your words and took his side against you. You did not understand why I wanted to save him. You didn’t think he could be. I had to believe though you were wrong so I could believe I could saved as well. I was angry because you could not see him as I did. I was angry because I was afraid you were right. If he couldn’t be saved, could I? I can see still your tears at my harsh words and I weep for them myself, for the pain I caused you, for the truths you spoke then, about him and me, all that I thought I had hid from you laid bare. I grew angry when you told me I had to fight it because then I was exposed to you and I knew you knew that I was not doing that as much as I should. Why did this come to me, to us, my Sam? Why was I chosen?

We were happier when we saw the oliphaunts. You looked at me with a smile, your face filled with such innocent, joyful wonder. It was as though we were lads again off on one of our adventures and imagining all sorts of things and that day right in front of us was one of those legends we had read about and played out in our fantasies. It was wonderful to see you like that, face filled with excitement and saying those back home would never believe it. You still believed without any doubt we would be coming back home.

My memories of what happened later are very confused and I wonder if it is another part of the madness the Ring caused. How I remember Faramir so clearly in two completely different ways? I think how rough he was, how desirous he was of the Ring and taking it to his father must be a lie it fed me to torment me, for I know, or I think that I know, he was truly more of a hobbit in a man’s skin, than the brute I also remember. How can he both be the one who swore not to be swayed by Isildur’s Bane and the one who held his sword at my throat, nearly driving me mad with fear that he would take the Ring from me? How can he be the one we feasted with, free from the rigors of the Quest for a night, not surrounded by enemies but new friends, who released us with food and blessed us with words and a kiss to our brows, and also be the one who treated us as prisoners, leaving us surrounded by new enemies and filling me with despair that the Quest would fail because he would not free us? Was our plight so desperate that you told me to put on the Ring to escape? I remember you pleading with him, nearly in tears, to help me and he refusing. Such foul memories must only be from the Ring, or do you have them too? Do they bother you as they torment me? Sometimes when you look at me, I almost want to say something and have you assure me they are but phantoms, but I never do, so I remain lost in my wondering, fearful you would think me truly mad if I asked. How I long though to see you smile, kiss my head and tell me it was naught but a bad dream I had and that, of course, Faramir was a wise and gentle man of the highest quality and not to trouble myself with such odd imaginings. I think even if you do have the same memories, you are too practical and sensible to be bothered by them. You would think them nothing but a queer dream of some kind, shrug your shoulders and move on because you knew the truth. I wish I was more like you, my Sam. I knew even before we left home my imagination is where the Ring knew best to torment me. That has not changed even now.

Indeed, there are some things I see over and over in my nightmares that I wake from when I hear screams, only realizing after you have rushed in to hold me, that they came from me. You don’t ask me what the terrors were about, just murmur over and over again that it is all right, that it is over, that I am safe in my own bed and in your arms and nothing can hurt me anymore. I want to believe you, but such horrors seem to be more real than what my waking eyes see at times. I do believe while I hold on to you so tightly, but after you leave, I know there are still many things that can still hurt me, leaving me bleeding from within.

One memory that cuts particularly sharp and deep is coming to Osgiliath. I hear the Ring calling out to its master and remember the terrible fear that he would find me, find it. You tell me I am all right, but I can’t understand what else you say. All I hear is the Ring. Then one of the Nazgul come and I am held in thrall to obey the silent command from the Ring to bring it to the wraith who towers over me on its fell beast. I am motionless, helpless, aware of nothing else as I hold it up so it can be returned to the hand that forged it. But before the wraith can claim it, I feel something bump into me and terrible pain in my heart and spirit that I am being stopped. I am knocked down and roll down the stairs, clutching at some unknown enemy, and then with a howl of rage loose Sting and hold it - at your throat. I desperately hope that this evil memory is merely another nightmare devised by the Ring and that it did not actually happen, but I will never know, since this is another thing I dare not ask. Eventually I hear you calling to me with tears why I don’t recognize my Sam. It’s those words and the fact that you love me even then, that you still want to be mine that draws me away from the madness that seized me. I fall backward while Sting falls from my nerveless fingers. I stare into the abyss that nearly swallowed you, had already swallowed me, and sit stunned by the horror of what I had just tried to do. You had already stared into the same yourself, reflected in my own eyes, and had remained strong. You called to me, not faltering in your love for me even then, so I know nothing ever will cause you to do so. But sometimes, sometimes, my most beloved heart, in my worst nightmares, when I don’t think there is a worse horror to imagine, I find there is. Those times I don’t stop and I run you through. That’s when I begin to hear the screams. The terror does not flee until finally I realize that you are holding me, brushing at my tears and telling me that it’s over. I hold onto you and wail out my grief and agony and all the while you rock me, stroke my curls and murmur over and over you are with me and that’s it’s all right. You don’t let go until I have listened long enough to your heartbeat that you know I have believed you, then you raise my head, wipe at the last of my tears and look at me, smiling softly and so lovingly until you know that some peace had reached me from all you are sending me and then you kiss my head and hold me some more until you know I am calm enough to try to go back to sleep. You tuck me back in and then sit beside me, holding my hand, saying nothing, but I am hear so much. It takes me a long time to return to sleep, but I do, because I know that it is indeed all right as long as you are with me.Who is going to say that to me after I leave?

Even if it my attack on you is but an evil lie from the Ring as I so hope it is, there is one part that I wish to be true, which could not have come from it. When my hope was gone and I sat defeated on the ground, you told me that there were things worth fighting for. All this time you have fought for me, even when I have done hateful things, or fear that I have. Even now you continue to sacrifice so much to keep me safe as you battle the shadows that seek to overwhelm me. I know you are right. There are things worth holding on to, like your love. Others will come to help me fight after I leave, and I know you will remain also. One thing I will fight for is to return to happiness and hope if that can be managed, so one day, when you come, my Sam - .I will not ‘if’ - you will see me smile again and know that all your care over me has not been wasted, that it was indeed worth your while to fight for me. That part of this terrible memory that I wish to keep. I needed something to keep me going on the Quest and I will need something to keep on the Road that I will soon travel. Both times you have provided that.

I will not disappoint your faith in me, my very own, I will not betray your belief that all will be all right. I must hope for that myself or leaving will be in vain. I vow it will not be. I will allow it to be for I will not have your biggest sacrifice, and mine, to be for nothing. That is what allows me to return to sleep. You have always had hope for me and that is why I can have it for myself, so I can return it to you as a gaily wrapped reward when we meet again. It is your hope that kept me on our dark Road and it is that which will keep me on the one I must travel without you, though somehow I know, I hope, you will be there on that one as well. I think you will be. I think all I will need to do is hold out my hand and I will feel you near, look sideways and see your shadow next to mine.

I remember twice - and I am glad that I do, even with the confusion it causes - about you wondering whether we would be put into tales or not and I making the point that I wanted to hear more about my brave Sam. Indeed I would not gone far without you, my own. And now I will be going farther than any hobbit ever has, without you. I am so glad Bilbo will be with me. Such a journey is too much for one alone to take. But I know even if he were not beside me, and I fear he will not be for long, you will still be, and Merry and Pippin. And I will be with you here as long as you are, perhap even longer, just as you will linger after you have gone. Or so is my hope through writing this story of my love of you and you of me, of my beloved brother-cousins, and our king, queen and dear steward, of all the great danger and terrible trials, of the tears and terrors. I want everyone to know what a marvel you all are. I have chosen much to celebrate about you to silence, or at the least lessen, all the clamoring I know will take place when the tale is better known. I want your children to know all about what happened to their father before they were even born. Indeed I want all the ages to know.

You are quite right that I should not spend all my days - and you know I would spend my nights, if I could - writing in a room that is dark for me, even on the sunniest days. But you do not know how little time there is left to do all the writing I want to do. Leaving the tale to you will be leaving a part of myself here. I do want some part to stay, a more noble part perhap, one that gave everything out of love, not the one who must leave now an empty shell, who did indeed give everything and has nothing left to give, but this one testament covered in red. I am glad this part I write now will remain separate, perhap never to be viewed by anyone. I cannot will myself to destroy it though for it is as much a celebration as it is a lament. If others do see it, they will learn more about you, and for that I can only be glad, though I tremble to think of the pain it would cause you if you read it yourself, knowing how much the Ring drained me, the torment here that could have been written in blood. I can already imagine your tears at such a time when you can look West but not be able to hold me as you would wish. No, I cannot leave this for you to find. And yet...and yet... Mayhap I will think of a way to shield you, my best brother, and yet find a way for the ages still to come to learn more of you who loved me so well, and I you. You will live forever in tales if I can manage it.

I was already a corpse when you gave me some lembas near the crossroads. I realized then as you slept I was dead, looking upon the Ring, hating it but also not so. How well I can understand how Smeagol was driven mad by it. My heart still beat, but there was so little left inside but for that. It is almost the same now, though this living death is now more painful. I am aware of each heartbeat, of each breath that reminds me that I live, but that awareness is its own torment. I am lost in the black with only the fire the consumes me as illumination, except when you come and the flames are for a moment quenched, just a moment, and I see another light. When will I be free? When will taking a breath be a celebration of life, instead of ensuring that another moment must be endured? Will it only become so after I leave? What a terrible thing to wonder, to hope for but such is all that is left, which is more than I have had on our terrible Road.

When you woke on our journey, you spoke of needing to ration what food we had left, and when I asked why, you said it was needed for the journey home in a tone of voice that made it plain that you were not considering any other route. You must have wondered why I even asked. I did not answer you. I could not. If I had, it would have been words of despair. I had already spoken them even before we had left the Shire and you had never left them daunt you. Perhap I was afraid they would now. I could not let them for if you abandoned hope, how could I go on? I only looked at you, needing your strength to continue. Always you have given me that and you still do so. Even when we part, I know you will, that it will be the last thing I see as the ship moves away, for if you did not you would not be my Sam. I know I will spend many nights on the boat and in the West recall each and every one if the loving gazes you have blessed me with. There have been so many.

One I recall most the closer I come to leaving is when I said I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to come back and you assured me with a smile that, of course, I was going to, that our adventure was going to be just like Bilbo’s, there and back again. I wanted to believe you, but though I have gone there, I have not come back, not truly. There’s too much that I lost on the way, pieces of me broken off bit by bit. There is another going ‘there’ that is coming and there will be no back again. You have done what I could not, my Sam, though perhap this will not be your final resting place either, anymore than it will be mine or Bilbo’s. You had wondered where we would all be living happily ever after. I hope one day you will find your answer where I am going, though not until you have spent every moment you want to here. I will not rob you of one instant of it. Your heart has always lay here, just as mine has, though you let me have custody of it for a time, just as I have given Bilbo, Merry, Pippin and you my own to hold.

I remember telling you that I needed you on my side after another argument about Smeagol. I am so glad that I told you right then that I knew you were for I know I hurt you yet again just by saying that I needed that, as though I doubted you always had been and always would be, even when I wasn’t on yours. I am so sorry, my heart, I am so very sorry. I know why you don’t let me write past tea time anymore when you see where I am in the pages I am composing for any who wish to know how much I treasure you and my brother-cousins, my king and his queen and steward and all those who hold a piece of my heart. The path is getting darker and the memories are always worse in the dark night when I am alone. If only I had the courage to ask you which memories of mine are real, but I fear too much that I will see hurt there and know they are true. I will not risk that. So I am left to wonder whether Gollum began to turn me away from you while we climbed the Stairs, planting doubt and fear and suspicion that you, my most loyal of friends, would turn against me and take the Ring. I know it makes naught a bit of sense but such things began to take root in me. How lost I was, how very lost.

I’ve long given up trying to circumvent your prohibition and even seen the wisdom of the servant ordering the master around, for you have become so much more than that, my most staunch and loving guardian. But you cannot stop the memories from coming altogether even if I am not to write of them and you cannot always be with me to keep back the dark, even in the bright sunlight that you convince me to enjoy every day. ‘A little time in the sun will do you good,’ you say and I cannot argue. But it is not the sun that helps. It’s being with you. You set me down on the bench there and I watch you work, a rare smile on my face. You refuse to let me take the book out with me, saying I should have some time in the light instead of the darkness of our journey. We both know it’s not so simple as that, thinking that the only time the memories torment me is while they are being slowly bled out onto paper, but being your obedient servant, I do not gainsay you. There are times though when the memories come so furiously that even with the sun shining upon me, I feel the darkness close in on me. The garden fades, the sun goes out and I hear things that I hope I never actually spoke and see tears I caused that I hope never fell.

Yesterday was one of those days as I thought of another terrible confusion in my mind. I remember falling asleep in your arms on the Stairs, but also sending you away in tears, believing the lie that you were after the Ring and sending you away before you could betray me. If that is true then it was I who betrayed you. Or is that another horrible memory that it feels so real but is another phantom? I wish I could know, but I will not ask. Mayhap you would assure me that none of it was real and some of the pain I carry would leave, the memories would fade away and the voices that torment me that I treated you so ill would cease. But what if it did truly happen? It would be better for me to weep as I wonder than to see you weep as you remember.

Much of that weeping went on yesterday as I heard Gollum twisting me tighter against you, accusing you of eating all the lembas. I must call him that now for Smeagol was as much manipulated by him and the Ring as I was. I know now the one I had begun to love and wanted to save was lost beyond my power. That grieves me in a way I don’t know I could ever describe to you. Even now it is a sore pain for he had had such wonder at being called by his true name, but he had been under the thrall of the Ring too long for the healing of his spirit to be more than faltering. I was falling under the same domination, causing a madness in me to doubt you, to think you were becoming an enemy instead of remaining my greatest ally. It was only out of love that you offered to carry the Ring to ease my burden, but that is not what I heard then. The poisonous seeds that had been planted as we climbed the Stairs blossomed then into their full terrible fruit. I did not see you. I saw only a threat to me and to the Ring. You wept when I told you to go home, and I turned away from that pain, turned to follow the one who was my true enemy, though I did not know it.

I would have got up from the bench as the memories continued to overwhelm me and gone back inside to spare you more of my tears, but you turned the moment before I could, your heart alerted though I had not made a sound. You frowned in that sad, loving way you have and came to me, holding me against you as I wept, not saying anything, just rocking me gently until I was spent, then you kissed my head and wiped what few tears remained. I smiled tremulously at you to assure you that it was all right for you to leave me a bit. You looked at me a while longer, not quite certain, but then I kissed your brow and smiled a little bit more. That convinced you the latest storm had indeed passed. You returned to pruning and I return to watching, my smile growing a bit more. How many tears will you have to wipe away until I have wept the last of them I wonder? You will never know because there will be many more you will never see after I’ve gone and I will never tell you. But I promise you, my beloved own, that the tears I weep when I see you again will be happy ones and I hope those will be last you will ever see.

Today we were out in the garden again when I saw a spider brush against my foot. I cried out and grabbed my legs up against me. You turned and saw where I was looking down terrified. Without much thought, you killed the spider. I looked up to you with a smile I hope was not too faint. Oh, my stouthearted Sam! I was so proud of you, thinking of how you battled a much bigger adversary on my behalf. But I also grieved. You had kept spiders alive before we left. I remember you telling me once that they were good for the garden for they killed other things that could harm it. Now you killed it, not only from your own memories but from wanting to protect me. A little part of you died on the Quest and I wish it need not be. My smile must have been strong enough for you to know that the fear had passed for you returned it with a beautiful, sorrowful, loving one of your own. Before you went back to work, you kissed the foot that the spider had touched and with it so blessed I felt them both safe enough to put down again.

I tried to keep the memories from overwhelming me again, but seeing the spider opened them back up to me. I am so confused, Sam. How can I remember both being in that terrible lair with your hand in mine so we would not lose each other in that horrid darkness and also entering on my own? I remember both you celebrating the victory over our adversary when the Lady’s phial drove our adversary away and also the desolation of being alone, betrayer and betrayed. I said your name aloud as the fullness of my terrible act against you came down upon me. What had I done? Did I indeed do it? I must be going mad. I do not doubt that I am. How many times I have wished and I wish once more that I could ask you, even if it means I would see pity in your face and eyes, as you learn more and more how broken I am. Still you would not stop loving me, that I know. You would take me into your arms, rock me, and assure me it was naught but a horrible dream, that none of it truly happened. Then I would know that the madness was not true, that is only the lingering of the Ring’s effects and I would be able to sort out what it had shown me and what was true. But again I do not ask, for again, I fear that to see pain in your eyes, all the confirmation I would need that my worst fears are real. Even then though I do not doubt you would love me and hold me. Still I will not risk seeing that pain. I could not bear it. I would rather bear the torment of not knowing than to hurt you again.

Other things happened also, terrible and beautiful, that are so real that I do not know the truth of either. The terrible is being stuck in the web and crying out for Smeagol to help me and his refusal. After I got free and broke out from the tunnel, Gollum was there to attack me and I to attack him. I nearly choked him to death because of the madness the Ring caused both of us, him to betray me, me to betray you. I saw what it was doing and what I was doing. I only stopped when Smeagol said it wasn’t him but the Ring that caused him to betray me. I let go of him when I recognized, just as I had when I attacked you, that I was not trying to kill an enemy, but someone I loved, while under the thrall of my true enemy. How much pain have I caused to those that I cared for because I was not strong enough to fight the evil that held me so? I was becoming instead a terrible thing that nearly had no strength left to defend itself or anyone else against the Ring. I told Smeagol that I had to destroy the Ring, not only for myself, but for his sake also, before it destroyed us both and everyone else, before the last flicker of will faded within me and I become just as lost as Gollum, who leapt at me and went over the edge. I could not stop him. I lay there, spent creature that I was, unable to do anything but grieve. I staggered on, now truly alone, and told you how sorry I was, you who I had sent away.

Even as I look upon you in the garden, plain as plain, I remember your absence and tears once more fall from me as the pain of betrayal once more consumes me. I wonder if you think me mad as you come to me again and hold me tight as I weep. Do you know I also grieve for Smeagol? I hold you, murmuring over and over into your chest how sorry I am. You stroke my curls as you tell me that there is naught to be sorry for, thinking I am only asking pardon the tears themselves, not knowing what caused them. When I have quieted on your breast once more, you continue to hold me a while longer and in your arms, I remember the one thing that is beautiful about all our time apart if such happened. Even if it did not, I would still wish to treasure it.

I remember collapsing from exhaustion and grief and then opening my eyes and finding myself in a wood and the Lady Galadriel looking down upon me. I do not know how such a blessing came to be, or if it ever truly did. I know you would have spoken of it had you been there to see it, so I think it another memory that is not true, but one that I merely wish to be so. As I gazed upon in awe, fairer than I had ever seen her, shining so very bright, and favoring me with such a loving smile, so much like yours but even brighter if such a thing could be, she spoke to me in my heart. I felt some strength and will return to me. I was for a moment alive. She held out her hand to me and I took it. She raised me up and then I was once more back where I had been. Remembering her love and support caused new tears as I remembered them today, but somehow you knew they were not sad ones, that my heart was not grieved but grateful. You raised my head and smiled at me. You did not wipe these tears away as you had all the others. I smiled faintly back, awash in your love and the Lady’s so fresh in my mind. The smile remained as you went back to work and my heart was less burdened even into the night.

There is another memory that I want to keep that may be true only in wish. I know at the least we were parted when the spider stung me and you had to come seek me in the Tower. But what happened there when you did? I remember telling you how sorry I was and having you look down upon with such wondrous love, forgiveness and joy. I also remember falling peacefully asleep in your arms, safe at last. All these memories I wish to have and will keep within me, hoping to see such again when at last we meet across the Sea. If you can forgive me what I may have done to you then, then I can have some hope you will forgive me for what I know I must do, what will become horribly real in a short time, a dread reality that I think still safe from you. Such memories are all I will have for many long years and I want to treasure them all, even those I am not sure are real but are still vivid in me.

Other memories I do not wish to have. I remember lashing out at you, demanding the Ring back. Of all the marvels in the world, that you retained it seemed the greatest, and of all the terrible torments of the world, the same. Gandalf had told me there would likely be no greater agony than to see it on the finger of Sauron, but it was no less great seeing it in your hand. Oh, my Sam, how terrible it is to write those words. Did I really call you a thief, my own loving, loyal guardian, or did I barely retain control and as calmly as I could ask that you give it back to me? Did I give in to all the Ring was screaming for me to do to you, or did I somehow find the strength to resist it? I had already attacked you once at its command, and betrayed you twice. Did I stop from hurting you again? I don’t know where I would have found the strength to say no to its demands, but I still wish to think I did. Mayhap in some way its terrible use of me before helped me to have the endurance to bear it this time without harming you again. Or perhap the strength to resist it came from you, from your sorrowful eyes, not wanting to burden me with it again, but knowing you had to. I was relieved enough to feel near to fainting when I almost snatched it back and it was mine again. I looked at it, no longer hiding that from you and felt its terrible joy and lust sing out to me and I heard myself respond. How I hated it, and how I did not. Can one die more than once? I have been since it came to me and felt more of myself disappeared into that terrible black hole that was the Eye. I put it on its chain around my neck and found it hard to breathe for a moment as I felt its sharp talons biting into me once more. Then the pain became familiar again and almost bearable as I adjusted my heart, mind, spirit and body to its terrible weight. I told you the burden had to be mine since it would destroy you if yo bore it. I knew well how true that was since it was destroying me. As painful as it was for me to bear, and still to bear even now, it is far less foul than it would be to see someone as beautiful as you destroyed by it. I remember how terrible Bilbo and Lady Galadriel became when it was within their grasp. I could not bear it if that happened to you, my own. The two lights in my life since we started our journey have been your own, and the Wheel of Fire, both undying flames, yours life-giving and warm, it a devouring inferno that leaves me shrieking as it continues to consume me. I know you hear every one of those screams though they are only in my heart and I would hide them if I could.

Since I do not know what truly happened in the Tower, can I then choose amid the memories what I wish happened, even if it did not? Then I would that you held me so close and woke me with a kiss, and that I did not hurt you once more. I know even if I did, you still loved and forgave me. That is vividly present in both my memories so I know at the least that is true and always will be. That is giving me the strength to be able to leave. I know my own love for you is but a pale shadow or seemingly so when seen against yours, but that will also always be true, even in the terrible time to come.

Your strength and support kept me on my legs after we escaped from the Tower and it will keep me as I try to escape from the Fire as well. I know you will not leave me orphaned. Even as I despaired at the thought of trying to get through so many thousands of Orcs, you were there to help me step by step, encouraging me to first get down a hill. I am going to remember that after I leave and have to climb down the Mountain you carried me up. Just as it was too much for me to think of the whole task then, I quail before the Quest that is before me now. But step by step, foot by foot, I will do it. I know I can because you will beside me just as you were before. I may not be able to see you as I did then, looking into my eyes and sending my heart hope and strength directly from your own, but I know I will not need to. Your heart will speak to me as it ever has and mine will speak to you.

When I weaken along the Road under the weight of my burden as I did as we marched with the Orcs, you will be there to hold me up and help me keep me walking. When I collapse from having to carry such a heavy load which has not lessened even now, you will be there to help lighten it. When you tell me to look upon a Star, I will have enough strength to do more than face my unseeing eyes forward, but to lift them up and marvel as what you did as I could not before. When I rest under the weight of exhaustion, I will rest by you as I did then, your eyes upon me even if I can’t see them. When I am thirsty, I will come upon a river and think of you giving me the last drops of the water we had.

When even you accept that there will be no return journey, but then lend me your hand so we can continue on, I know you will be there to hold my hand even when I believe there will be no way back on this Road I still travel, that I will ever be in darkness. Even if that be true, I know you will remain by me, but I am determined, hoping even in my despair, that there will be one, if not a way back, a way forward, out of the black night. We will arrive at it together and when we finally see each other once more face to face, you will see the fruit of such a victory.

When I can barely walk and see dreadful visions before me that I cannot hide from, you will be there to walk with me. When the memory of a piercing Eye is too much for me and I collapse under its weight, hiding my body from it, yet unable to veil my heart or spirit as it devours me, I will keep your face before me instead of what I saw then, what I still see so often. When I only have the strength to crawl on my belly and painfully pull myself along with my bare fingers, you will be there to strengthen me. I will be climbing down this time, and if I can struggle to climb up, the downward way should be easier. I hope it will be at the least.

When I can no longer move and lay face down in the dirt, you will hold me in your arms, and I will remember, as I could not then, the Shire and the taste of strawberries and cream. I will remember your words earlier that there will are things worth fighting for. I will fight for myself. There is too much lost for me to return to the one you loved before the Quest, but your love has only increased since then so I know you will love the one you will see when you come. It will not be the broken one you shield and love so well now. It will be healed and whole, a new creation blended with the old, just as I will behold when I see you. Already I cannot wait for that day.

When there is no strength left me, you will carry me. Somehow I will feel that. Even if I cannot see your arms around me, I know they will still be there. It will seem to anyone watching that I am walking on my own, but I know I will not be. Even if you cannot lift me as you did on the Mountain, you will still be carrying me and on your sturdy back I will rest as you toil for both of us until I can regain the strength to continue on my own.

I may be long in my new home before I can truly sense all this, all that I have never lost while I am consumed with all that I have, but those being the two same things, I hope we can both know what we have still retained even over so great a distance. I stare at the word I just wrote - home - and marvel that I could consider any place to be home other than the Shire, other than with you. Still I know the word is right to be used since my heart finds peace and solace looking upon it, and how could it if you would not be there with me? I can hope for nothing less than our union to be the same or nearly so for such cannot be sundered even by a Sea so named. True love is never lost or mindful of distance, for what distance truly shall come between us? I must believe such things, and so must you, my Sam, and so you must tell Merry and Pippin. It will be hard to believe when the ship first leaves and the distance lengthens ever more, the pain growing as the separation deepens, with the cords of our hearts straining to remain together and not snap and flail in the wind just as the roots that I have tried to replant in the Shire have. In all but the darkest nights, I can believe all this to be true, that we will be ever together. I have to believe, even if I am more an heir to the title of Mad Baggins than Bilbo ever was.

I am that, I know. If trying to kill those I loved wasn’t enough testament, then what happened at the Fire is. What person with right reason would not heed your pleas to destroy the thing that was destroying them? Oh, my dearest, purest Sam, I tried so hard, but it was impossible, even now it is. What person other than one mad would instead claim that thing for their own, and not only fight to retain it, but be so consumed with lust for it that even when it is bitten off in great agony, would battle the thief to have it once more?

I do not know what happened after that, for I both remember kneeling at the very edge of the fiery doom that captured the Ring as it fell with Gollum, and also going over the edge with him, but somehow being able to stop from falling and have you find me barely holding onto some piece of rock, dangling over the Fire I longed to fall into to join that part of myself that had already been claimed. What keeping me from letting go? Only you. And barely. I so very clearly remember the terrible look in your eyes as you saw everything that was in my heart then. I saw your grief and the horror that I may be lost to you at the very end, but I also remember your hand reaching down to me, loving me and forgiving me even then, not wanting to lose me even after all you had seen. I remember looking hard into your eyes, of reaching up to you but not being to hold on, of desiring still just to let go, to have my body consumed by the flames that still devour my heart and spirit. But I did not let go. I reached for your hand once more and this time was able to hold on. Or did none of that happen? Oh, how dearly do I wish that! I cannot bear to think I hurt you so deeply once more. For I remember also that you came to me, held my bleeding hand against your breast and rejoiced that I was free. Perhap that is the truth? I would have it so, but I also wish to remember the love that reached down to save me when I would have been lost, when I wanted to be lost. Painful as all those memories or phantoms are in which I have hurt you, they are still to be treasured as one would hold a rose against the heart when it still holds its thorns. For if you loved me even then, you will always love me. That is one thing that Ring could not have inspired even if it sent the rest.

I rejoiced with you that I was free at last, even as death was near to claiming us. It was with wonder that I could no longer feel its presence within me. I was empty of what had filled me so longer and it was a marvel to sense that. We escaped to one small island as the rest exploded into chaos. Life began to return to me. I saw the Shire again, the River, Bag End, all the things I thought I would never see again. You remembered Rosie dancing and mourned that you would never now marry her. I came to you then and held you and told you how glad I was to be with you. I held you tighter and rested my head against yours, waiting for end in the only way I now desired, with you. The only way I still desire. When the end of all things does truly come for us, I hope it will come in the same way as it almost did then.

Awe and wonder overcame me when we were lifted away from death by the Eagles. I slept again, as safe there as I have ever been with you. Where we woke is another confusion to me, for I remember it in Ithilien and also in the Houses of Healing. How can it be both? Gandalf was there both times to greet me and what a marvel that was to see him again, so I know that is true in one fashion or another. But were you sleeping beside me when that happened or did you appear from another room afterwards? I joyously welcomed Merry and Pippin back into my arms, they who I had grieved long lost. New life and strength flooded into me as they saw that I awake and could smother me once more with all their love. The rest of the remaining Fellowship came in, all smiling and rejoicing and I filled with such happiness to see them all. I had never known such delight, not even in Rivendell. I had been traveling so long in darkness and now I had come into marvelous light. It was like a proper hobbit meal placed before one who had been starving. Then I saw you, shyly peeking your head in, not sure if you really belonged there or not. All else faded away when we gazed at each other. My excitement settled down to a tender gaze full of such great love and appreciation from a heart that could never fully express everything.. We had endured so much together. All that passed between us. Much of it I put in the book to celebrate your love and life, but some of it is only here where you will not see it. Perhap when you come I will tell you some of it, but mayhap you already know all of it. Your uncertainty passed the longer we looked at each other, your face growing so soft, your smile and gaze so full of love and pride in me, for the joy that I was happy once more, no longer exhausted, filthy, so starved and thirsty as to be near death. For all we knew, we had passed through the shadows and the black night and a morning we thought we would never see had broken. None of us realized then the claim the Ring still had on me, that the emptiness would not be filled with light and life, but become a devouring one in which I had not only lost it but myself also.

You still smile for me, filled with the same tenderness and love, but there is sadness and grief now there too. The euphoria of survival could not be sustained. Life began to fade from me once more. The pain of loss was with me even in Gondor, even as the king was crowned and all knelt before us, as though great deeds had been done. And they had been done. Merry had helped defeat the Witch-king. Pippin had saved Faramir’s life. You had stayed by me through many trials. I was only able to stand there with you because of your unfailing devotion, but what had I done? I did not finish my task. It had to be completed by one whose lust for the Ring was greater than mine, whose life was taken so we could all live. I gazed out among the people in wonder and confusion, but also so moved I was nearly in tears. If I had wept then, what could I have said was the reason?

I wonder if you would understand that I grieve for Smeagol still at times, lost to the flames that continue to consume me, that devoured his spirit long before they consumed his body. I wish they had not. I wish he could have had the same opportunity and blessing that is before me. I wish I could take him with me and we would both find the healing I must believe awaits me there, so far away. He is gone, but still I see him in my dreams which are not unhappy. There he still lives, there he still has a chance. It is hard to wake from those and realize anew he is gone. Can you even guess that sometimes my tears are for him?

When we came home, it was bittersweet and another terrible confusion for me. Did Shire life go on as it ever did, swirling around us in a jolly mood at the Dragon with us the only somber ones as we sat together, toasting each other with our ale? Or did we have to clean out the ruffians first and witness Saruman’s death at the door of Bag End before life could return as it should? If I could choose what was true, I would choose to watch with joy and wonder as you walked up to Rosie in the inn and celebrate that you did what you said you wanted to at the Fire. I was so happy to see you two wed. That is one memory that remains the same. Even with the shadows gathering deeper around and in me, I have that to cheer me. Your sacrifices on my behalf were not in vain. You came back to your lass and now Bag End will be filled with life.

It has been a great consolation for me to know that, in part at least, how abundantly you and Rosie will be blessed. I look down at Elanor in her crib and I see such clear visions of her as a young lass, the fairest one in all the land. You said at her birth that you thought she would be even more beautiful later and I know she will be for I have seen her. And I have beheld the one you will name after me, and Rose’s belly heavy with the third. There will be more I’m sure. I wonder what you must think of me, standing at the threshold of Bag End, my eyes far away, seeing things that I will never witness but already have, wonderful things that her running toward you and you so lovingly taking her into your arms, marveling at your great fortune and treasuring her like the rare gem she is, then reaching out with the same wonder and love to touch your son, another Frodo of the Shire. Oh, my Sam, how much there is in store for you! The tears that come then are happy ones, almost dried by the wind before you see them, almost but not quite. Still I can smile for you then and squeeze your hand and you can smile for me. You do not wipe those tears as you somehow recognize it is joy-filled pain that causes them, though not why the pain is there or the reason for the joy as I celebrate the moments when life briefly returns to me as I see all that will be yours, when I am not filled with darkness, but with light. We do not talk for there is no need. I am glad we do not for how could I tell you what I feel then, the celebration of love and life that you have brought to me and the pain of knowing how little of it I will actually see? All of this you will understand after I leave, perhaps only when it comes your time to leave. How can be dead and alive at the same time, filled with both torment and joy? One cannot be. Therefore I rejoice in what you have given me, my most beloved Sam, these brief moments that are mine to treasure forever.

I wish I could stay. I wish I could see all of your children grow up, hold them in my arms and on my knee and spoil them as you have ceaselessly spoiled me. I know I cannot and that is new grief, but there is also the peace of the sights I have seen, vivid enough to remain with me all the while until you come again and tell me of all I have missed. I cannot wait for that, my own, I cannot wait. If time passes differently in Elven lands, I hope it will too where I am going. I know it will be terribly slow at first when I feel your absence the keenest, and long for your presence the most, but then I hope it will cease to matter and it will seem but a long year or less before I behold you again. I do not doubt it will be many years in truth before I can do that, if I do it at all, but I know also I will feel you in my heart and hold you there and be held there. I will see your smile and feel your kiss and hear your voice and look into your eyes, long before you actually come. I hope you will feel the same from me. Tarry as long as your heart is firmly rooted here, my own, and I will not grudge a day of it. Come only when you are ready and do not tarry then either. I am not taking anything with me for the journey but what I hold in my heart: the terrible pain, the hope of healing that is so tremulous at times but never fading completely, and the tremendous love you and my brother-cousins bear me and I bear you all. This last Quest will not be a vain one. Though I must leave you all, I know also that I will not be alone. I will have lost none of your company, and I will have new companionship, long missed with Bilbo and new friends as well. It will be all right, my Sam. If you can tell me that in my darkest days on our journey to the Mountain, then I can tell you with the same certainty with the even darker days to come. For there is light there also and it is rising in the West.

Namarie, my most beloved. But only for now. Only for now.