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My dear Sam,
I write to you now on the eve of our departure from the Shire, on a journey which, although you do not yet know it, will be my last. The reason I write to is... more complicated, however. But I will start at the beginning--our beginning, anyway.
Mordor. It still chills me to even think the name. But even as I remember the foul weight of the One Ring, that miserable drudgery across barren lands, our final, torturous ascent up the Black Mountain, overshadowed by all, in that moment, is the moment of our victory. The Ring's shadow left me, yes, and I felt triumph at the Dark Lord's defeat, yet... I also felt something of a pernicious nature--still delicate, without a doubt, but with an unalterable foundation.
I said nothing about it to anyone else, and precious little to you, Sam.
Actually, that is a lie. In the moments after I threw the Ring into the fire, on our patch of safety, as the lava flowed and rocks fell, before I knew fully what I mean, I said to you one sentence.
Do you know what it was?
If you do not...then before I say any more, I must explain why I never said any more. After Gandalf's eagles took us back to the Shire, and our bodies healed, I was so happy. Happy that we had won, but mostly that everything would now go back to normal. I thought that it would be me and you, and Merry and Pippin, for years and years. Only, before I knew what I truly wanted, before I had the same utter clarity as on that fateful day in Mordor, you had already begun to move on. We were still the best of friends--nothing could, and nothing will, ever change that--but you brought someone else in. And now you're married to her.
Do you want to know what I said? I said: "I love you." I know you already know that, you know I would die for you, but surely you had heard me thinking those words, every day to keep me going? "I love you, Samwise Gamgee." My dear, dear Sam. Those words were all that brought me to the top. The Ring tried to drown me out, and I admit at one point it succeeded. But nothing will change the fact, the absolute fact, that it is because of you that Middle-Earth is now safe.
Sam. I love you more than you could possibly know. I love you, I love your wife, I love your beautiful children. And even as I sail across the silver sea, and finish what began when Gandalf caught you listening to us under the eaves, that will never change. I will still love you the same as I did in Mordor, the marshlands, and everywhere else before and after.
And it is why, as I write this letter, I realize I will never tell you any of this. You are happy. You are safe.
I would die before I changed any of that. In a way, I suppose I am. For some reason, somehow, in a way I cannot describe, that makes me happy. My last great act in Middle Earth, perhaps the only one truly great, was to make Samwise Gamgee happy.
Now I can rest.
Goodbye, Sam. I will you see you again, in this life of the next.
I will.
Always and forever yours,
Frodo