I forgot, today.

It was a busy day, see? There was a party here for young Maisie Burrows, who is Ellie-lass' best playmate, and I helped Rose with all the preparations—that is, until she and Maisie's mum chased me out of the kitchen—and it was raining, so here's a house-full of giggly teen lasses and lads, all carrying on and eating and teasing all the bairns something fierce, and I thought my heart would burst from laughing at all of it, and then…

Then a sudden light fingered its way across the Bag End front shutters, a shaft of sunset's gold piercing a day that had been all cloud-grey, and the laugh choked in my throat as I suddenly recalled what had happened this day nearly twenty years ago, in an ancient Grey harbour on a long, grey tide. Tears rose to my eyes, hot and swift as the oaths that I wanted to call myself but couldn't amongst all those youngsters, and Rose met my eyes above the crowd, puzzlement turning into soft understanding as I wondered what cruel trick time was playing upon me, how I could forget.

How I could dare to forget?

Then Ellie waltzed by, arm in arm with Maisie and both of them singing to the music from young Rosie-lass' fiddle, and young Bilbo demanding another cake wedge from Maisie's mum, and all the while Rose looking at me so concerned until Frodo-lad came between our gazes, wanting "a proper dance an' all" with his dad. It broke something within me, sent it cascading through my nerves cool and fresh as autumn rain.

I took my son's hands—my son who bears your name and looks nothing like to you—and felt his pulse race, heard his laughter ring into the rafters, and recognised, amidst the mayhem of my family's joy, what I should have known years before. Aye, I'm slow and were you here you'd give me the sharp edge of your tongue for you said it yourself; it's what you told me I was worth having. And there's been a long time I didn't feel worthy of it, this gift you gave up to me, but I've finally come to see—mayhap late, but game—what it truly is you gave me when you left, and when you left me behind.

The right to giggle like a bairn at my young'uns' birthday parties in a steading of my own, to hold my wife close at night, to miss you on clear nights when the stars burn cold, to scold my youngest for dipping unwashed fingers into the honey pot, to hold my newborn bairns all wet and wriggly in my big hands, to show those same bairns, as they grow, the magic of brown marks in a big, red book, to see my garden develop—soil, root, seed and flower—with not only the Lady's blessing, but yours.

And to scorn those gifts, mooning after what couldn't be past reason or sense? I've known for some time that would be scorning what we were to each other, and what we'll always be, but…

See, I've been foolish. Even m' Gaffer, all old and forgetful in his own time, knew that time plays no tricks; it nought but carries on. While I might forget the days or the minutes, I'll never forget how blue your eyes were or how your lips would sometimes tremble as you kissed me though I was never quite sure why; how you let me be an equal in your sight but let me keep to my own; how you held passion hot and wild as a bonfire, and cloaked it with poise cold and pale as starshine; how I loved you so in spite of and because of it all, and…

And how I knew, all along, that the time would come for letting you go. I knew.

So I laugh. My eldest son grins, and Ellie-lass larks by, minus Maisie, to steal me from Frodo-lad with a smooth nonchalance that has me worrying for her virtue, just like any silly old dad. My boy calls his sister a word that I should wash his mouth out for, and Rose hides a smile beneath her hand, but I keep laughing.

I hope you can somehow hear my laughter, somehow see what you've given me and more, what I've taken for myself.

I hope you're laughing, too.

* * * * * *