I remember you, Mother.
Sometimes, unexpectedly, you invade the little moments of my life, and I remember.
Sometimes, just sometimes, when Sam draws aside
the curtains and says, “Good morning, Mr. Frodo”, I hear your voice, faint
and far away...
You call as if in my dreams. Within my mind not
yet fully fettered to another dark day, I hear your sweet voice calling,
“Good morning, Frodo-love. Wake up.” I can almost feel your kiss on my
brow and your fingers brushing aside the curls from my face.
And sometimes, just sometimes, when Rosie cooks
her special stuffed goose, and the smell wafts through the smial, I can almost
imagine it’s you in the kitchen, bustling about and humming that little tune
you always used to hum. How did it go? I think we had stuffed goose every
Yule, didn’t we? Twelve Yules, twelve geese...though I don’t suppose I actually
ate goose for the first few years of my life. Funny...I can’t remember the
taste, just the smell, and your hands settling the platter onto the table.
I can’t remember your face so much except by looking
at the portrait above the mantle here in the study. But your hands...I remember
your hands. Bathing me, dressing me. I remember being ill and your hands
- cool and soothing - on my forehead. I remember walking in the fields with
my small hand tucked tightly into yours. Your hands always made me feel
loved, and safe.
I never feel safe now. I do feel loved...Sam and
Rose and little Elanor see to that. But I don’t feel safe. Evil things
come for me in the night - and sometimes even in the day. But the nights
are the worse. Sometimes I wake Sam with my screams, and he rushes into
my room and holds me til I can fight my way out of nightmare and regain some
semblance of calm. On the worst of those nights, all I really want is to
feel your arms
round me again, Mother, to be your little Frodo-love again and be rocked back to sleep, safe and warm.
Sometimes when I fall asleep again I dream of water.
Sometimes it’s the River, and sometimes it’s the Sea, with grey gulls crying
overhead. The River bore you down to the Sea, perhaps; certainly it bore
you out of Middle-earth and out of my life. Someday - soon, I think - I
will also be borne away from Middle-earth.
Tell me, Mother, when you left, did you find peace? Will I find peace? I begin to think it is my only hope.
And what then, if I cross the Sea? No matter the
peace and healing I find there, no matter the length of days, there is yet
another crossing to be made...a passage the Elves cannot take and cannot
withhold from me. What lies beyond that shadowed shore? I do not know,
but hope for this: that when I make that passage, it will be like awakening
out of a sweet sleep. to the feel of your hands on my face, your kiss on
my brow, and your soft
voice calling, “Good morning, Frodo-love. Wake up.”
