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Illumination
Time was, when you would laugh. And no-one, nowhere, ever had a laugh like
yours. Even in the middle of a crowded night at the Green Dragon, I could hear
it - not that it was that loud, mind you, but it was so yours. I didn’t always
ever know what’d make you laugh, though, and sometimes it’d be your old Sam,
when he never expected it. But that was always all right, ‘cause to watch your
face light up like that was a gift, every time. Even after we left the Shire,
you’d laugh sometimes, mostly at your cousins. And if for naught but that, I’m
glad they came along. But I never heard you laugh after we reached the Black
Lands. Never again.
Time was, everything caught your eye. Birds’d fly overhead, you’d stop and
watch.
“They rather look like hawks, Sam. But red-tailed, from the North, I think. I
wonder where they’re on their way to.”
And I’d stop and look up too, and remember there were worlds outside of the
Shire, for surely I never would have thought of that without you.
The study at Bag End was full of curious things; feathers, stones, dried
flowers, even a smoothed piece of wood that old Mr. Bilbo said had come from
the Sea. Most folks’d pass that sort of thing right by, but not you. You would
look at that feather as if the turn of the plume, the drift of the vane, would
give you that answer that you’d been looking for. And if there was time, you’d
show me what you saw, and I’d marvel how I could have passed right by all
these years without seeing. But then, ever after that, I’d always see what
you’d shown me, and hear your soft voice again, all excited by the discovery.
Time was, I could make you happy. And it weren’t that much as would do it,
just to train morning glories around the bedroom window, so as they would open
as of a morning when you would open your eyes, and which was bluer, why, I
never knew. And the red poppies that I planted amidst the beans just to give
your eye a bit of color, why that made you happy too. The honeysuckle vine
that grew near the kitchen? The year the hummingbirds decided to make that
their home, well, you couldn’t be happier. We’d sit out near the vine, as of
an evening, and watch them.
“Flying jewels”, you’d call them, as surely they were. And we’d watch them
until one would stop short, and hang in the air right in front of you, as if
you were some rare flower the likes of which it’d never seen before.
But I know that you were never happy, once that cursed thing truly laid its
claim on you, and nothing I could plant could ever change that.
Time was, your eyes were always so clear and bright, whether they shone with
happiness or sparkled with mischief, and I have seen both. True, sometimes
there were tears, but never more than a brief summer’s shower, leaving the
world all the brighter afterwards. There were no more tears after we returned
to the Shire, but they never shone again, not that I ever saw. There was only
pain there, as much as you always tried to hide it. You never got much past
your old Sam, you know, me dear.
Time was, your touch was as light and fleeting as the brush of a butterfly’s
wing, but it would be enough to make me turn to you, craving more. Or your
hands could be fierce and demanding on me, as if to keep me fast to your side
whether I would or no. As if I could ever want anything else. I was always
yours, and there never was anything you could have asked of me that I wouldn’t
have given you, no touch of yours that I didn’t long for. No matter if it was
a simple brush as you passed me in the hall of Bag End, or being folded up in
your arms in our feather bed every night, I never felt your hands upon me and
not feel as if my heart wanted to shout for pure joy. After we returned, you
let me hold you, and brush your hair from your thin face, and you would even
hold me in return. But you never reached out for me, no, not once.
Once your kisses were the sweetest thing I ever knew, finer than the best
summer wine, enough to make my heart start pounding, and my head spin for pure
happiness. It was so long ago, that first kiss of ours, but I can still
remember how dizzy I felt, and how I could never believe as it was me you
wanted. But you did, didn’t you, me dear, and those kisses of yours had me
convinced, soon enough. Once I thought to spend the rest of my life tasting
your mouth, drinking down those kisses, touching every bit of you, knowing
even then that there would never be enough time. Once I thought I’d hold you
in my arms every night, kiss you a new day every morning, until we had both
grown so very old together, and even then it would never had been enough.
But that never happened, and I lost you, my heart. All I could see in your
eyes was misery and emptiness, and no matter how hard I tried to love you, in
the end, it was never enough. You deserve to be happy again, me darling, to
smile and laugh, to open your beautiful eyes up to all the wonder in the
world, to find it in your heart to heal and love again. And so I did the
hardest thing I’ve ever done, giving my life over to only the whisper of a
maybe, my forever love. It was the last thing I had left to give you.
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