Chapter Fourteen:  Catechesis

I’ve asked Gandalf if he could instruct me more on Iluvatar, Sam. I’ve been learning a lot in the past few months. I’ve heard about the Music we are all part of, each with our own individual parts to play and how each one’s melody blends to make one large Song. I could almost hear my own, I could definitely hear yours and Bilbo’s and Merry’s and Pippin’s and Elanor’s and Frodo-lad’s and almost like a dream of something composed, but not yet heard, the soft sounds of all the other children you are going to have. What a wonderful, wonderful sound it all made! I closed my eyes just to listen and what joyful peace came to me.

We are all children of Iluvatar, Sam. I can’t tell you how special that is, but when you come here you will understand. Thanks to my parents, you, Bilbo, Merry and Pippin, I know what it is like to be greatly loved, but here, dearest heart, here, is Love that you’ve never felt it. It has so helped me to realize anew how blessed I have been and continue to be, that I am still loved and worthwhile even with all my faults and failings. Gandalf tried to tell me that before we went on the Quest the second time. I never really believed that until now. I couldn’t, but I am beginning to now. I can see the darkness in my soul being washed away and how I am being made anew again, bright and shining. I wish you and Merry and Pippin and Aragorn could feel this. You four have no need to be bright and shining again because you have always been, but still to feel this! Oh Sam! I am glad that I have the hope that at least you will know this.

I’m so looking forward to bringing you here to this room, my brother, so you can feel it all yourself. You feel it everywhere, but here, it’s the strongest and it’s like nothing you have ever felt before. I wish I could describe it to you. The Elves made me a bench to sit on that was more hobbit-size, but I asked them to move it to the garden instead. I want to sit on the larger benches. They make me feel like a child again. The same feeling of love, caring, safety, warmth and support that my parents, Bilbo, my cousins and you surrounded me with, envelopes me even stronger here. It helps not to miss you so much, but again, makes me so anxious to see you so you can share in it yourself that I am nearly giddy and can hardly sit still!

I’ve also learned about the Gift that Eru (that’s another name for Him) gave to Men and thence to Hobbits - the gift of mortality. But, my Sam, I hope we are together to accept that gift jointly. I don’t want to die ahead of you and I don’t want you to die ahead of me. I’ve come every day to the dark room to beg for that favor.

I also come here when the pain flares up and I have to wrestle even harder with my desire still for the Ring. Normally that means in the middle of the night. I’ll stare up at the light and listen for what my heart needs to hear. Surrounded by such love, by Someone who knows all about me, all my secrets, all my shame, all the evil I have done, but still loves me, still forgives me, I feel myself calm and the desire leave me. It’s an incredibly freeing experience.

When I’m ready to leave, when the desire has left, I bow in respect and love and thanks. I sleep soundly for the rest of the night, knowing I will be even stronger the next time I leave.

I wish I could have healed in the Shire, in your arms, my Sam. You tried so hard and I can never thank you properly for all you did, for all you forgave, for all that wonderful love that just kept growing. I am so sorry that for all the love you lavished on me, I only brought you tears and grief. You tried to hide your pain from me, but I saw it and grieved for it. I wonder if you think you failed me, that if you have if you had tried harder or loved me more, I wouldn’t have had to leave. I hope you do not think that. You did not fail me. I failed you. I failed myself. You could not have loved me more, dearest.

I have watched you bring back flowers that anyone else would have long given up on and seen your triumphant smile as they lived once more. You talked to them, pruned them, paid special attention to what feed and fertilizer they got and lavished such love on them, they had no choice but to thrive again. There were many times I wished I could have been one of those dying flowers, but the soil I needed to flourish again in was not to be found in the Shire. There was another plan for me, for us. Without that, I would have never discovered this wonderful place or this wondrous knowledge of who and what I am.  It is here that I am learning to love myself again, as though I am a fauntling just learning to walk, at first toddling unsteadily across the floor, but I promise you, my most beloved brother, that by the time you see me next, I will be running, running to you.