Chapter Sixty-Six: Falling Asleep Again

Translator's Note: My beloved queen translated part of Sam’s entry.

Oh, my Sam, all your dreams have come true, save one. You have your Bill back. You married your Rose. You have started your family. You are so happy, so alive and the Shire is alive again as well because of all your hard work. I know you are meant for great things and I am happy myself that I have seen it begin. I wish I could see it all, but I have been given the blessing to know more of it than you do right now, enough to know that joy will fill you ever more and you will get the proper recognition and standing in the Shire that you deserve. I can leave knowing you are in the best of hands, that all will be well after this storm passes and I need but wait until my turn comes and you and I can celebrate all your joys and accomplishments together. That knowledge and the love you give me now is how I can smile in these dark days before the dawn, and know even now, that I am the luckiest hobbit there is because of you and my, your, beloved little flower, little Elanor and there will be more flowers, enough to fill your garden and your heart to overflowing. Oh, my dearest brother, what a life awaits you! I wish I could be a proper uncle to all of your children, but I will be only for a while Elanor’s. I hope you know though that I will love each and every one of them, and I hope you will at times press their brows with a kiss for me and give them a hug because I cannot. I will miss so much of your life, and Merry’s and Pippin’s, but I will be happy knowing that my brothers live in an unmarred land, that you are the reason that there was even a home to come back to and that I have known and been blessed by four of the best hobbits in the Shire. I am glad too that Lobelia and I parted in friendship. All’s well that ends better, as your Gaffer said.

For me, I hope to wake again from this terrible night. I have fallen back asleep and I do not think I shall wake again until I reach the rich air of the West. Still I breathe in the wonderful air here, all that I can, as though I can store some of it in me. I run my hand against the flowers and plants in our garden and curl my fingers around the grasses and feel the tickle of them around my toes. I walk in the meadows and the fields and I breathe deep and take in all the smells and sights that I will never see again but in memory. It is so beautiful here. I wish I could take a bit of it all with me. I wish most of all that I could take you and Merry and Pippin, but Aragorn is right, the tree blooms best in the land of its sire, and you three are going to bloom so very much. I am a tree that has been uprooted, but I hope to bloom where I will be replanted. I wonder sometimes whether that is possible, to grow in foreign soil, but it is my last hope. I will not bloom here again.

I wonder if you know or suspect something already, from the way I look at Elanor or at you, lost in the process of memorizing everything so I can always hold you and her fresh and alive in my heart. I wonder if I’ve given myself away again as I did before when we left the first time when I thought I had been so careful. But I cannot not do what I am doing. The time grows so short. You will know my doom soon enough. I still do not know whether I held a sword at your throat at Osgiliath, but I do know that I will be piercing your heart with one at the Havens, if not before. It is the same one that has been already plunged into my own. I hope Merry and Pippin will forgive me for not saying goodbye. I cannot live without you, my Sam, any moment more than I have to, but I cannot say goodbye to everyone and everything all at once. It’s going to be already too much. I do not want to pierce their hearts anymore than I do yours. That will be horrific enough. Forgive me, my brother, please forgive me.

* * *

I saw you at times looking at me or Elanor or even the grasses in the fields as though you would never see them again. I didn’t know what it all meant, but it did give me a start and a sadness and uneasiness that I couldn’t quite settle. Your light continued to shine, though that was not all that came from you. There was darkness too, but the light shone around it. We used to take walks in those later days and you’d hold my hand firmly, but you weren’t all there. Too much had been taken away from you to re-form yourself here. You were like an tree uprooted by a terrible storm and you couldn’t settle again where you had been. But I know you tried. I know how hard you tried. I saw you lay out in the grass, fingers splayed out so you could feel everything, eyes closed so you could just listen to all the birds and feel the wind and the sun so bright on your face. Other times you would watch the clouds for hours and sometimes I would join you and remind you of all the times we had spent as lads making up stories around the shapes of the clouds and all the fun you had had with Merry and Pippin doing the same. You would smile then sometimes and take my hand, kiss it and hold it and I knew you remembered even if you never spoke. Other times you cried, tears slowing tracking down your cheeks and I knew you were remembering then too.

All this beauty around you and around me, around all of us that the children can play so innocently and joyfully in, without a single care, and the gaffers and gammers can rest and gossip under the shade of trees and in inns, is from you, my dear love and not a day goes by that I don’t think of that. You loved this land so much, so very, very much. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you to know you would be leaving it and never coming back and trying to keep that torment to yourself. You didn’t, not from me. Do you know I used to watch you sleep? And sometimes I would weep over you. Do you know how many times I heard your softly murmured words, so false, yet true? I waited and listened to hear you scream caught in the hold of those terrible dreams, but I waited in vain. The scream never came, save in the form of a whisper: my name. It took me a long time to understand what you had to do, why you had to leave me. What else was left to you? If you had remained, how long would it have taken for the darkness to claim you utterly? Do you know I saw your silent tears, how often I could hear your agony? Do you know I watched you day and night and saw your losing fight? Day after day I looked into your eyes, and when your hope faded, I saw you struggle on despite its loss as I had watched you so long on the Quest. Then you left and I learned the hard way that the only thing harder than holding on is letting go. I still wake up at times in the dead of the night, crying and wondering if you're all right. I know you are, but still there are times I am just as lost as you were at times, not knowing true from false. I miss you still. But if you look back from where you are, you'll see me standing here under the stars and smiling even with tears in my eyes.

I should have been more watchful and treasured you more, but I thought I had the rest of my life to do that. I should have realized that you were slowly saying goodbye. I know it’s going to be a bit hard for me to leave too, but nowhere near as hard as it was for you. You didn’t have someone waiting for you at the other end, like I do. You had no one to look forward to seeing as I do to ease the loss. But I know my time will come, and that will ease the pain, though I know I’m going to shed a few tears anyhow,. But you will be there waiting for me and I will be running to you and my tears will be more of joy than sorrow then and you will wipe them both away and bless my head with a kiss as you did when we parted. I can’t but look forward to that. How wonderful it be to feel your touch again, so soft and gentle, and look into your eyes, so shining with love and joy and just lose myself in your arms and light. How often I have dreamed of that, my dear, how often. I love you, my own. I love you. I love you. You have given me a tremendous, joy-filled life here.  All my dreams have come true, save one.  One day, though, we won’t be looking up at the stars alone, but standing side by side under the same sky and stars and we’ll be smiling and our tears will be of joy and love.  There will be no more dreams then.