Let’s make the most of this beautiful day by Quente

If we're together, we might as well say...

Read If we're together, we might as well say...

He was in his bed, tucked under the quilt his mother had made for him many, many years ago.

His sons were in the room, both of them holding his hand. And Joanne was playing him his favorite song, a soft song from when they met.

Bright blessed days, dark sacred nights
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

It was sweet, so sweet – his family’s love surrounded him, and for the first time in a very long time, he couldn’t feel any of the pain in his stomach.

“You know I love you,” he said to his sons, but his voice sounded so far away – did they hear him? Maybe it was the soft music they heard instead, Joanne’s lovely, nimble fingers making magic for him. He wasn’t worried, though. His sons knew he loved them, knew it by his actions, by his life, and by the hand he laid in theirs.

In all things, he’d been blessed – and the world just continued to give him love. It was so much, sometimes! Too much. He’d tried to give back even a little of what he’d been given, pouring it gently upon the earth like the carefullest of gardeners. But was that enough?

Can’t I give back just a little more? He said in his head, as loudly as he could. His eyes were shut now, and he could tell his body was ready to rest. I know I’m supposed to let go, but you’ve given me so much, can’t I give back just a little more of all this love? I’m like a train that just won’t get off the track you’ve made me – can’t I keep on going?

But a door appeared in his mind, and very faintly, far away, he heard a soft voice – Joanne’s voice – saying, “I’ll see you when I see you,” which was the way she always said farewell to him when he went to work in the morning, with a soft kiss to each cheek, and then his lips.

He felt it then, those three kisses, but it was as if that part of him was growing thinner and thinner. With a soft sigh, he said goodbye to her in his heart. He could spend a lifetime saying her name, and listening to her skillful fingers play – but he’d reached the end of even that.

It had been such a beautiful gift.

It was time, and the door was there. But just – if there was a moment for him to change – it didn’t feel right to go on without at least a little bit of preparation.

Ah. There was a chair next to the door. The chair had a cardigan on it, a red one. And below, a pair of sneakers. Well, that was excellent! He had everything he needed, now.

He put those on, humming a little to himself, and looked at the door. He could see light around the edges of it, just a little. He stood, curious, and put his hand on the knob. It was time to move on, and he had his armor.

He opened the door and stepped through.

~

He was in a garden – unexpected, but beautiful. Glancing around, it looked softer and fuller than any garden he’d ever visited, as if it had been tended to an exquisite level of detail for more years than he could even imagine.

Tentatively, he walked over to an archway made of branch trimmings all woven together, clustered and blooming with the softest of purple flowers. If his sons had been there, they would have tugged his sleeve. “Papa, what’s that?” They’d say. “I don’t know, but I bet we can find someone that does!” He’d answer. “There are always people in the world who can help you understand what you don’t know.”

And if he was going to live in a garden from now on, he’d best make himself useful, too! He looked around, taking his time. He felt as if he didn’t have to rush at all anymore.

It sure was pretty there. Picking a direction, he walked in it, thinking maybe if he found a nice path, he’d find nice people at the end of it. And the nice path would have wonderful things to discover as he walked it, too!

The path did not disappoint. Here and there were vistas of snow-tipped mountains, or strange distant fairy castles that reminded him of the one he’d built in his studio, out of his own imagination. There were streams that seemed to sing as they bubbled past, and little groves that had rocks in it that were just the right height for sitting a while and doing nothing at all.

It seemed so healing there, but he didn’t have all that much in himself to heal, if he was honest. Instead, it all just filled him up with happiness again, so much of it that his feet didn’t even feel like they were touching the path anymore. He floated for a long while down the gravel, wondering what would happen if he stretched out his red arms – would he turn into a robin?

He tried it, and then laughed when he saw that he could, in fact, grow a few red feathers.

Well, he’d do that later. Right now, he felt so joyous that he had to share his joy with someone else, or he’d burst.

And just about then, he came to a quiet glade with a lady sitting in the middle of it doing a little bit of sewing.

He asked his feet very politely to stop their floating, and asked his arms if they wouldn’t mind going back to their old shape. When he felt like he was put together again, he walked to the edge of the little glade and pretended that a tree was the door.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said, knocking a little. “You’re the very first person I’m seeing in this splendid garden, and I wondered if you’d mind answering a question or two for me? I am new here!”

The lady looked up at him, and he could immediately see that she was exhausted beyond all understanding of the word. He frowned, because it was sad to see someone looking like that in a place like this, and stepped forward to stand before her. He didn’t have a hat to take off, but he nodded and smiled at her – nobody had ever said no to one of his smiles, and they were all free.

“I can try to answer you,” the lady said, “But I might not know the answer. I’ve only just woken up, you see. I was so tired – and I am tired still.”

“I can see that,” he said, and took that as his invitation to sit on a comfortable looking patch of grass near her feet. “Do you mind if I ask you, why do you feel this way?”

“I do not mind it, and yet I did not think anyone in his realm was ignorant of my sorrow,” the lady said, smiling a little. She did not still her fingers, and he watched as she painted a picture in thread on the framed bit of fabric in her lap.

It was of a person that she must love, he thought, because she was taking care to get every bit of it right. “I haven’t been here long enough to learn everybody’s name and anything about them,” he said, smiling. “But I can tell you’re working on some lovely art. Who is it you’re making there? I like the way you’ve done the eyes.”

“It is – was – my husband,” she said, haltingly. “I gave him a child, but I felt so tired afterwards because I put so much of my soul into making my beloved son that I had to come here and sleep a while. My husband … he moved on. He wanted more children than I could give him.”

“The expression you’ve put into his eyes – he loved you very much, didn’t he?”

“Not enough, I think,” she said, staring down.

“Do you think that’s true?” he asked, gently, “what you’ve made shows your heart, and his heart, and I can see that it took a very great love for you to do what you did and create you both an amazing child. And it also took a very great love for him to give you the space to come here and rest. Now, why couldn’t there also be enough love to go around that he could love you and the mother of his other children too?”

She looked down at him curiously then. “You’d be the first to say so, of all of Lórien’s vassals,” she said. “They all know the statute. I must remain here so that he can have his other wife – he cannot have us both.”

“Well, I am not sure who Lórien is yet, but I’d be happy to talk to him with you if you want me to,” he said. “Sometimes all it takes is looking at things in a slightly different way. And then what seems broken can become something entirely new. I dropped a clay bowl once – and it wasn’t good for holding cereal and milk any more, but it made an amazing pot for a plant!”

The lady laughed, and then looked astonished at herself. She got to her feet, sliding the embroidery into her apron pocket. “I think I shall take you up on that offer, Carnináro, for you speak wisdom with directness, and that appeals to me.”

He blinked at the name he’d been given, Red-flame, and smiled down at his sweater. He could understand why she’d give him that kind of nickname. But to set the story straight – “Actually, my name is…”

But she’d turned away to lead him out of the grove, so he hurried up a little to catch up with her. They went past many more comfortable looking glades and dells and hills and rills, and he rejoiced to see every one of them, because it meant that someone could sit there and rest and heal a while.

And before long, they came to a place where a natural rock formation made a clear patch in all the gardens, and it overlooked a lovely swooping vista of a little waterfall that fell down to even more gardens below. There were more people here, including someone that seemed to have feet like a cloud and hair that floated up into space as if it was filaments connecting to a lot of different wires, tying him into a vast cloudy network.

He came before the floating person – who had to be Lórien – and saw the great compassion in him, as well as so many dreams and joys and visions that it was amazing one person could hold them all. But maybe that’s why Lórien was there – because he had so many dreams that he had enough to share them, and so that became his job.

“Hello, I’m your new neighbor,” he said to Lórien, giving him a soft smile. “It is so very nice to be here and meet you.”

And strangely enough, the floating person gave him a vast bow, as if greeting a prince from a fairy land.

“Oh you don’t need to bow to me, Mr. Lórien!” he said. “Where I’m from, we shake hands, like this.” He held his hand out, and the floating person took it in a soft and slightly diaphanous few fingers. He gave the diaphanous hand as firm a shake as he could, and smiled. “My new friend has been telling me about you. Apparently you have people working for you, and I wouldn’t mind doing something with all this extra joy in me, if you could use it to help you at all.”

Lórien considered him for a moment, and then shook his head. “Nay, is it not your choice to be here, Lord? Glad am I that you have graced my land with your presence, and should you consider remaining to assist me in my work, I would be naught but grateful.”

Grateful? He laughed. “I see you are a lot like me, Mr. Lórien! I am always grateful for help too, when I ask for it, and when I don’t. But I did come to you with a bit of confusion to help smooth over, if you don’t mind us explaining it to you for a bit.”

“Of course I shall hear you, Lord Melesanto. You do us honor to visit our realm.” Lórien settled upon his rock shelf, swinging his feet over the edge to look out over the land.

“Now that’s the second name I’ve been given,” he mused. “But you can call me –”

“Ah, Lord Melesanto, that name rings true,” the lady said, and took a seat next to Lórien.

He sighed, but chuckled. The name love-giver was truer than most, and his own name meant peaceful ruler after all, so maybe that’s where Lórien was getting the Lord part. That was fine, but he’d straighten them out later. Now wasn’t the time to concentrate on himself, when his friend needed some help.

“Now – my first friend over here was telling me that she doesn’t feel like the person she loves has enough love in him to welcome her back after her long rest. She thinks he’s moved on now that he has someone else to love, and more children too. But Mr. Lórien – I think you and I both know that that’s not how love works.”

“We abide by the rules of this land, Lord Melesanto. We cannot simply rewrite the laws to allow a marriage beyond two people in this manner.”

“But it isn’t fair to keep folks away from the people they love by being inflexible about it,” he said, a little stubbornly. “And I bet if we spoke to all three of them, they’d agree that they are more hurt by being kept away from each other than they would be by being allowed to work it out on their own. Sometimes inflexibility can get in the way of healing, and I know you know that.” He kept his voice gentle – Lórien had so much kindness in him that he’d be able to see it too, if he thought about it in the right way.

There was silence, then. The lady next to Lórien was smiling at him, as bright as the stars that were just beginning to wink into being at the edges of the garden.

At last, Lórien sighed. “You have made your point indeed, Lord Melesanto. I will bring your words before my brother, and see what change I may bring about.”

And without much warning, the being who was half cloud dissolved entirely into mist and floated himself away to the east.

“I’ve never seen that before,” he mused, eyes wide.

The lady beside him laughed again, and he turned to look at her. The joy suffusing her face was dazzling, and took away much of her look of exhaustion.

“Glad am I that you wandered into my glade,” she said. “You must be a great lord indeed to work such acts of change upon the very Valar.”

That word meant Gods. “Oh, not me. I am not so great as all that,” he said. “Just a person who likes to be kind to other people as best I can. And sometimes, a lot of confusion can be solved by talking it out.”

The lady laughed again. “Well, I think you have an occupation here, should you choose to take it up. There are many here whose confusion would certainly be unraveled by a talk with you.”

He smiled, a bit bashfully. “I think we all do what we can to reach out to each other, but I know I’m a little more stubborn than most. Oh! Before you go – because I feel pretty good about your chances to rejoin your family – what’s your name?”

“Míriel. And what is your true name, Lord?”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, putting out his hand to take hers. “You can call me Fred.”

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for the Funky 70s prompt in the Silmarillion Writer's Guild, but also written because I fiercely want Mister Rogers to still be out there in the universe doing good.