I want to hold onto you forever, but I let you go. You have other goodbyes to say. I can’t believe this is happening though, that I am losing you. That I will come of age and you will not be there to celebrate with me. That....that....that.... How many myriad other things will happen and you will not be there to share them with me as I knew you always would be?

I remember the first time I was afraid I would lose you. I was seven and Merry and I had come to spend a few summer days with you. It had been very hot the day before, but that had not stopped you from running around all day with us, playing all sorts of games. We had the grandest time. You, however, did not feel well that evening and were sick several times during the night and more the next day when you couldn’t even get out of bed. You had a terrible headache on top of your very unsettled stomach and I felt so afraid for you. I was kept out of your room most of the day with a equally-fretting-but-trying-not-to-show-it Merry doing his best to distract me and himself with the trinkets Cousin Bilbo always kept around for our visits. But more than anything we both wanted to be with you. I snuck into the room and Merry stuck his head in the door and we watched as Bilbo and Sam fluttered around you. Our cousin made sure you drank the little tea and water you could keep down and Sam supported your head as he coaxed you to eat a small bit, then made sure your pillows were arranged so you were as comfortable as possible. But you were miserable. I wanted to cry I felt so bad for you. I don’t think you even knew we were there because I doubt you would have spoken what you did.

“Am I going to die?” you asked Cousin Bilbo after he held the chamber pot under your chin as you threw up the small pieces of toast Sam had just finished coaxing down your throat. The two of them looked rather alarmed at your question and I gasped in fear and gave myself away. Sam turned and scowled at me. I know Sam believes that he was put on the earth specifically to take care of you and I discovered then that anything or anyone that upsets that does not sit well with him. Of course Merry and I believed and still believe we were also put here for the same thing, though Merry believes it is his task to look after both of us. From that look Sam gave us, I know he blamed me and Merry for you being sick and I think he was even a little mad at you, but he couldn’t show that so he settled for glaring at us for as long as he dared, which actually wasn’t all that long, but to a seven year old rather frightening. Then he turned back to you and gently wiped the spittle from your mouth.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” you said weakly. “After all you did...”

“Don’t fret about it, Mr. Frodo,” he said as he finished cleaning you up. “We’ll just try again when you feel more up to it.”

Your unanswered question though still hung in the air and we all looked at Bilbo. Merry thought it might be better if I wasn’t in the room when it was answered, but I resisted as he tried to steer me out. I had to stay. I had to know if you were going to die. I couldn’t let you, especially without me there. I had to be able to say goodbye if I could do nothing else. I had only seen one other person die, my nurse, and that had been horribly frightening. I shouldn’t have been there at all, but I had snuck in because I wanted to say goodbye to her. And I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me near. I didn’t want that to happen again. I continued to resist Merry’s efforts, but in the end, he was too strong for me and we left. I was in tears as Merry tried to reassure me, but his arm around me and his voice were both shaking and I knew he was just as scared as me. He looked at me and we stayed just outside the door and left it open just the barest crack so we could hear the answer.

“No, of course not, my lad,” Bilbo said with more cheer than I thought even possible.

I was so relieved and felt Merry relax, then you spoke again and my fears rushed back. “But Cousin Coral did,” you said. “And she had the same thing.”

“She was also a lot sicker and a lot older,” Bilbo said. “You have merely done too much on too hot a day.”

“You’ll be fine soon, Mr. Frodo,” Sam assured. “Just fine.”

I didn’t hear that last part, not really. All I heard was you had done too much and that was why you were so sick. Sam was right. It was my fault, mine and Merry’s. I began to cry again and pulled away from Merry’s hand on my shoulder. He couldn’t hold me back, no one could. I came right up to your bedside and you greeted me with a faint smile. I was mesmerized by that, by all the love that shone in your eyes even then as it always had. Sam tried to shoo me away and Merry stepped in to fetch me, but I wasn’t going to leave. No one was going to make me.

“I’m so sorry, Cousin Frodo,” I said in tears. “I shouldn’t have played with you so much. Do you hate me for making you so sick?”

You smiled even wider. “No, dearest Pipsqueak, of course I don’t hate you.” You reached out to dry my tears and some of the terrible fear that I was going to lose you left me. “I have loved you from the moment you were born, when you were so small and red, wailing loudly and wriggling all over the place and so beautiful. I’m going to love you forever. Do you know how long forever is?”

I shook my head. “Is it a long time?” I asked hopefully.

You smiled again and took my hand. “Yes, dearest, a very long time.”

“Then you aren’t going to die?”

“I couldn’t leave you, could I? Or Merry? Or Sam? Who would take care of you all?”

I giggled then and before anyone could stop me, I crawled into your bed and lay my head on your chest where I could hear your heartbeat. Sam was just about ready to lift me off when your arm folded about me gently.

“No, let him stay, Sam,” you said and I could hear the smile and love in your voice and I smiled too. “Just a little bit.”

“Yes, Mr. Frodo.”

And so I stayed and we both fell asleep, I reassured that you were going to be okay and that you weren’t going to leave me.

The next time I feared you were going to was when you were about to go on the Quest and you were trying to be so secretive about it and failing so miserably. You didn’t get away from me then either, but you almost did on Weathertop and we all lived with that horrible fear for days as we watched you fade before our eyes. Then there was the agony when you were taken away and I was so afraid that I would never see you alive again, that you’d die without me and I wouldn’t be there to comfort you. That was the first time I began to truly understand what forever meant and it continued when we came to Rivendell and we weren’t allowed to see you much at all, except for Sam who became a force of nature not even Elves could resist when it came to insisting at being at your side. I still marvel at his courage to do that, his awe of the Elves overcome by his love for you.

It was so wonderful when you woke and looked at me and smiled. I curled up next to you and put my head to your heart and felt you stroke my curls slowly. The light shone again in your eyes and soothed away all my fears. It stayed with me until Parth Galen when I watched you shake your head no to joining Merry and me in our hiding place. You looked terrified. I wanted nothing more than to run to you and hold you and protect you, but I didn’t move. I know Merry wanted to do the same thing, but we just watched you leave and as this horrible, tearing loss opened in our hearts, we did what we could to make sure you got away, away from us. It was the hardest thing I had ever done.

Do you have any idea, my beloved cousin, my brother, how much I thought of you when we were apart? And then when Merry and I had to part, I don’t know how I stood it, losing you both, without going mad. I began to understand more and more what forever could mean. I tried so hard not to be afraid for you, for Merry, to be strong for you both, in the hopes that you two could somewhere, somehow sense that so you could go on, knowing how much I loved you both. But I was afraid. I was terrified and I cried a lot when I thought no one could hear me. I remember one night Gandalf coming and holding me as I cried. Still I couldn’t lose my hope for either of you. I just couldn’t. I had to hold onto that because the thought of you or Merry dying without me, out somewhere I’d never know where, would have truly driven me mad.

When I found Merry alive on the battlefield and you and Sam were brought back by the eagles, I was overjoyed. We barely left your side for fear you would die without us. You were so weak. Aragorn himself cleaned you and Sam as tenderly and reverently as I had ever seen him touch anything or anyone and he’s the king! You were so dirty the water ran dark as it streamed off you and Aragorn had to go through several cloths to soap you up and wash you enough that your own skin shone through again.

I remember when I was little and you’d give me a bath after playing outside after a rainstorm and, I had, of course, gravitated to the muddiest parts. I loved to splash around in the bath so much, you got just as wet as I did. I never did outgrow that. Nor having you near me.

“Where’s my cousin?” you’d tease me as you soaped me up good and the water turned quickly black. “I can’t see him under all this mud.”

I’d giggle and kiss you quickly and you’d jerk back in pretended surprise and I’d laugh again, seeing the soap and mud I left on your cheek. “Something just kissed me,” you’d say. “Was that my cousin?”

I’d giggle and kiss you again and say “Yes, cousin, it was me!”

You always expressed doubt, but as you washed behind my ears, under my arms and between my toes, you slowly discovered that it was indeed me. “Oh, there he is!” you’d exclaim. “I knew he was around here somewhere.”

Watching Aragorn wash you, I came to see how thin and frail looking you were and decided I preferred seeing you with all the dirt instead. I wanted to give you all the energy I could just by being near. I couldn’t bear to imagine what had happened to your maimed hand, so that was the one I always held so I wouldn’t have to look at your missing finger. I cried for all the terrors you had endured, that I hadn’t been able to protect you from. I cried because I was so afraid I would still lose you, even though you continued to breathe steadily in and out. I knew from constantly watching you just how many breaths you took each minute and I assured myself that number didn’t change and each day you looked healthier and your cheeks rosier, though they remained frighteningly hollowed out as was your stomach. I didn’t like to look at how thin your arms and legs were so I was glad that you were kept covered most of the time. I wanted to hold you, to listen to your heart, but you were so fragile looking I was afraid. So I just sat at your side, held your hand and tried not to look into the chasm that yawned at my feet that was the idea of spending forever without you.

Then finally you woke and smiled weakly at me. I smiled so widely at you and I began to cry again. You reached up to wipe at my tears. “Don’t cry, ’squeak,” you whispered. “I’m so glad to see you. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

I laughed then, the first time I had in far too long. It felt so good! You had nearly died and the first thing you could say to me was to tease me! I watched the chasm close and I curled up next to you. I was still afraid of hurting you and it was gently that I kissed your brow and gingerly that I laid my head down on your chest. I knew it was all right when your arm slowly closed around me and your lips softly brushed my head.

“I’m very glad to see you, Cousin,” I murmured and we fell asleep like that, with me listening that beloved heartbeat of yours and your arm around me. I knew then that you would be all right, that we would both be all right.

But you weren’t all right. No matter what any of us did, we could not ease for long the torment we saw in your eyes. And it is still there. It is the reason we are standing here on this dock, crying, instead of sharing an ale in The Green Dragon or tramping alongside each other in a green meadow and laughing. We are all crying but you, but I know you have been crying inside for years now. You look very much like you could cry now, but you don’t. Perhaps you will later or perhaps you are afraid if you started you would never stop. You have been hurting so long. Looking into your sad eyes, I begin to understand another meaning of the word forever and I don’t like it, but I can see now why you have to leave. It is the only thing that is allowing me to let you go, otherwise I would have held you until the hurt left you. But I know now it won’t, not here.

But there is more than pain in your eyes. There is also so much love that I could stare into until the world faded away and not get tired of it. I cry more as I realize I truly have only moments to do so. I wish I was not so tall now that I couldn’t listen to your heart one last time before it is lost to me forever. That word again. I am getting far too much an education in the meaning of that.

I let you go and watch you board the ship. You look frightened at first, but then you smile. Such a wonderful, beautiful smile that I can’t help returning it even through my tears. You don’t say it, but I can hear it nonetheless. I’m going to love you forever. It streams from that smile, from the tremendous look in your eyes.

I’m going to love you forever, my own smile is saying.