Chapter Sixty-Seven: Coming Home

Hello, my Frodo dear. I am writing this on the ship that I will take to you. It’s been 61 years since I said goodbye to you, and now, soon, I will be saying hello, actually to you and not just writing something on a page. Do you have any idea how much I’ve longed to say that to you and to hear you say it back? I’m glad I didn’t know how long it would be until I could. I don’t think I could have borne it. I don’t like the water anymore than I ever did, but I won’t mind this time. Every moment I will be getting closer to you. I can’t wait until we leave, but Mr. Cirdan says we must wait until evening. I don’t think any day in my life has gone slower than this one!

I am bringing this journal with me so you can know how much joy you have given me and so many others. I don’t think I ever told you, but I dreamed that you received the gift Elanor sent you when she was seven. In her own writing, she penned you a little note, just to say hello and tell you that she loved you and missed you and hoped you were all right, then she drew pictures of herself and Frodo-lad and me and Rose and ‘her babies’ as she liked to call them, Rosie-lass and Merry-lad, just so you would know what we all looked like. It was such a dear thing for her to do and then the other children wrote and scribbled a little of their own. I wrote just one line myself, then we set the bottle afloat. In my dream, I saw you pick it up and rather puzzled, look at it and open it up and your face lit up like the sun when you realized who it was from, then you cried and held it tight against yourself. You were so happy. It was just that wonderful seeing you like that. You were practically glowing. When I woke up I missed you more than ever, but I also felt closer to you. I smiled all day long just from that joy. She sent you a new picture every time another lad or lass was born, but I don’t know if you truly got any of them.

In all the excitement of earlier, I forgot to tell you that Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin came to see me off. We cried a little, but I know they are happy for me. They can’t help but wish they could join me, but they are at peace with the fact that their lives are here and that they will see you again. They send all their love to you. We have never forgotten you or stopped missing and loving you.

From our earliest memories we knew we were in love with you and you with us. I’ve wondered many times why couldn’t we have always been like that - so joyful and carefree, no storm on the horizon or battering our hearts and tearing at our souls, blissfully ignorant that there was even such a thing as evil. Our love for you and yours for us I know never faltered, but why couldn’t the rest have remained the same also? I know what you would say, what Mr. Gandalf said, that everyone who experiences such wishes they could have been spared from it. When I think of these things, I also think that because of you, my children and everyone in the Shire, do have that same carefree joy because you did not shrink from confronting evil when it did come to us. Yes, you would have wished to have been spared - we certainly wish you had been - but then I think that I love and admire you so much that you did not seek to be spared, that you gave everything so we could have everything. The children you saved the Shire for will continue to thrive there and generations untold after them, all thanks to your great gift to them. Finally I will be able to thank you myself.

These have been very happy years for us and we have you to thank for that. We all wish you could have been here to complete our joy, but you have always been in our hearts and thoughts. You have never truly left us. It took me a long time to understand that. At first all I felt was your absence, but then I began to feel your presence. You may not have been physically there, but it didn’t matter anymore. You were still there even if my eyes couldn’t see you. My heart saw you. I began to see again your face lit up from within and your smile and your laugh like poured sunshine and the love that always shone from your eyes and voice.

I remember, too, when your smiles and laughter were gone, but your love was stronger than ever, when it was just you and me and an iron determination to keep all we loved safe, even if we didn’t survive ourselves to see it. Everyday I have thanked you for your sacrifice when I look at my children or any of the Shire or my Rose or even in a mirror and see happy faces there, happy because you gave everything so they could have everything. I don’t remember the pain anymore, all that remains is your love.

I leave all my children and grandchildren safe and happy because you have loved them as well. We all cried when I said goodbye, but I think some of those tears were happy ones. They know I am coming to you and know that, though I will miss them, I will be happy. They’ve all read from the Red Book or have had it read to them, and they understand that it really happened, but it’s in the past. It’s not their present, thanks to you. Because of you, their worst injuries have been sprained ankles from falling off a hayride, a broken arm from slipping when climbing a tree. They have not had to fight orcs, Black Riders, trolls or giant spiders. They have not had to watch as darkness spread out to engulf them. They have not feared to walk outside at night. Their worst nightmares have been the ones we used to get - from Mr. Bilbo’s stories or their own imagination. You have kept them safe from everything else. You have not known any of them but Elanor, but I know you have loved them all. It was for them, for all in the in Shire, that you went to destroy the Ring. And I will never be able to thank you enough the wonderful gift of peace and safety you gave to them.

I have held each of them after their birth and each time I was sure my heart would burst with the love that exploded there, not just for them, but for you, my dear, for giving me this joy. That none was born into danger and darkness, I owe to you. I am so glad you had the same joy in holding Elanor. I will never forget the peace and happiness that came to your face whenever you did. All the pain and strain would fade and you were once more the gentle Elven being I had fallen in love with as a child and to this day, have loved more each day.

I have also held each one when they were sick, when they couldn’t sleep because they were coughing too much or couldn’t keep anything down or were feverish. I have stayed up with them, fed them, held their hands and read to them. I have sang to them the same lullabies you sang to me when I was sick and I sang to you, the same one your parents sang to you. And though some of them were very sick and we worried for their lives at times, especially in the cold winters we have had, none of them died. We have all been safe because of you. I think somehow you have been making sure of that and somewhere you have known of my joys and worries and have shared in them.

This will be the last time I will write, Goodnight, dear. Sleep well. I love you. Next time I will be telling you. I won’t be kissing a page goodnight, I will be kissing you. And when I see you, my dear, I am never going to let you go.

* * *

Oh, Sam, you’re coming! You said you would and you have never broke your word. I don’t know how long it’s been and I don’t want to know. Many years, I’m sure, but now at last, soon, my brother, soon! I just can’t wait! I fear very much my friends are going to find me completely insufferable with all my nerves and anticipation. But I think they are also very happy for me and they look forward to meeting you themselves. Gandalf has been walking around with a huge smile on his face for days, but otherwise as inscrutable as over and none of my badgering, begging, threats or attempts to bribe any clues out of him have worked until finally he told me today it was because you would be coming. I could have deafened him with my shout of joy or squeezed him to death with how tightly I held him! Then I ran to the dark room, shouting the whole way that you were coming. If everyone here didn’t think I was cracked already, you would think they surely think so now, but no, they know how much I have missed you and love you and there are many smiles on this isle and they are all for you, my dearest heart! I threw myself down at the Iluvatar’s light and thanked Him over and over for this tremendous gift. I don’t know how I am even going to sleep with all this excitement! I just hope I don’t collapse from sheer exhaustion in your arms the first moment I see you. There’s also so much I want to show you and tell you and share with you. And when I do see you, my heart, I feel it’s only fair to warn you, that I am not going to let you go. We will say hello and never again goodbye. I love you so much, my Sam, so very, very much.

End of Part Three!