Giving Thanks by Antane

Just before he leaves for the West, Sam thinks about his master...

It’s been 62 years since I said goodbye to you, my dear. And now, soon, I will be saying hello. 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.

These have been very happy years for me and I have you to thank for that. I only wish you could have been here to complete my joy, but you have always been in my heart and in my thoughts. You have never truly left me. It took me a long time to understand that.

It was that hard in the beginning to stay here without you. All I felt was your absence and it reminded me of all the things I couldn’t do anymore, like seeing your face greet me each morning, making you a cup of tea or one of your favorite omelettes or listening to you read out of your favorite book or giving your brow a kiss goodnight and watching you sleep. All manner of things. Your walking stick remained at the front door, never to be used again, because I wouldn’t, couldn’t move it for a long time. It was waiting for you it seemed and it didn’t seem right to move it as though with it there, it meant you would shortly come out of your bedroom all ready to go on a hike and I’d be right there with you. Same with your pipe. It remained near your chair near the fireplace for a long, long time, waiting for you, not knowing you’d never be back. For a long time the only time I touched your books was to dust them. You were such an avid reader they had never had time to get dusty before and I sure wasn’t going to let them go dusty now. Didn’t seem right that you would never touch them again.

But slowly that huge, gaping hole your departure had left in my heart began to be filled with your presence. You were still there even if my eyes couldn’t see you. My heart saw you. I began to read out of your books and I’d hear your voice. 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. And when your smiles and laughter were gone, but your love was stronger than ever, I remembered that too, 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 honored your sacrifice, my dear, 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 of what you did. I can’t hardly remember the pain; all that remains is your love.

But how many times I’ve wished you were still here physically as well, my dearlove. Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin and I have never forgotten you or stopped missing and loving you. From our earliest memories we already 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. Or maybe with a teasing smile on your lips, you would repeat my own words back to me and say, There’s nothing for it. I always smile when I think of you smiling. 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 of one of the many reasons I love and admire you that much, my dear: 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.

Thirteen of those children are mine, my dear, and there are grandchildren, too. Think of that! It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? And they are all safe because of you. When they are old enough, they all read from the Red Book or 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 hobbit 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 sung 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 were that fretful 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.

I thought I saw you once when I myself was sick. It must have been the fever, but I opened my eyes and there you were before me, plain as plain, smiling down on me with so much love, I began to cry. You looked so beautiful, so happy, so at peace. I wanted to call out to you, but I didn’t move, I scarcely even breathed, so scared I was to disturb the lovely dream of seeing you again. You gripped my hand and held it gently and I swear I felt that, can still remember feeling it, and when you leaned down to kiss my brow, I know I heard your soft voice. “Hold on, my Sam,” you said against my ear. “I am waiting for you.” Then you were gone, but I know you were there. Something Elvish in your blood, dearest. I always thought so. Mr. Pippin said you had appeared to him once when he came of age. My fever broke the next morning. I know it was because you came. Everyone thought I was dying, and maybe I was, surely I had never felt worse, but you watched out for me, for all of us. Somehow you did.

And now I am coming to you, coming at last. My Rose died not three months ago, in my arms. But that was hard! Now there is nothing holding me here anymore and for many a long year I have longed to see you again. Finally I will be able to thank you myself for all you’ve done. I have no doubt of that, none at all. You’re there, waiting for me. I know you are. And when I see you, me Frodo dear, I am never going to let you go again.