Tolkien Quotes: Solid and Whole

“I wish I could go all the way with you to Rivendell, Mr. Frodo, and see Mr. Bilbo,” said Sam. “And yet the only place I really want to be in is here. I am that torn in two.”

“Poor Sam! It will feel like that, I am afraid,” said Frodo. “But you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be.”

*

“But,” said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, “I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done.”

“So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.”

*

Today, after thirteen months of surgeries, ER visits, and prolonged uncertainty, my dad came home from the doctor’s and announced, “It’s not cancer.”

The world opened up again. I didn’t realize I had been holding a mental breath for thirteen months. Each day, no matter how good it was, had dragged by in brooding uncertainty, and I had wished that a year would pass and this would all be over. Abruptly, it’s over. There are still complications in his health to deal with, but the surgeries are done and the threat that we had feared never came to light. It is my hope that he is on his way to healing completely in every way.

It seems appropriate that I would be talking about these quotes today. I put them together because I feel that they are related. Here, we see how the journey has affected Sam and Frodo. Sam is on his way to healing, but Frodo realizes that in this life he will never be solid and whole, and he is at peace about it. He is a hobbit living with a terminal illness; his strength has been broken so that others may be strong. It is sad, and it doesn’t seem fair, but it is a reality of life. However, Frodo also understands that there is a Place where full healing is possible.

This section of Lord of the Rings is always intensely bittersweet to me. But today I am glad, immeasurably glad, that even in a broken world, healing is possible.

~Lisa Shafter