Dear Bilbo,

You have my heart.

It’s been a while since I came to visit you, I know. But don’t you assume that I have forgotten about you. You live in me, just like your story does – eternally. You changed me, even when I didn’t want to. You have added so much to my life that I cannot help but get misty eyed at the very moment something reminds me of you – it could be a little word, a certain kind of weather, a feeling – I am not sure what to call this, but it’s safe to say that I am in love with you; in love with every bit of your personality, of your actions, of the way you were, are, and forever will be. It’s impossible to miss you because you are always here – present in the little acts I do all day long.

Whenever I look outside the window in my room, my mind wanders hither and thither only to settle – always – on you, Bilbo. I cannot help but wonder what the sky must be looking like from that beautiful house you live in. Bag-end – my favorite place to holiday. You remember my last visit? It was a winter morning and I was feeling particularly sad that day. I don’t remember why exactly but I was anxious to leave my house and go somewhere extraordinarily simple, where life is counted in moments. I wanted to go somewhere magical. And as soon as my eyes rested on the book containing your life, I knew where, my dear Hobbit. 

You might not know this but I jumped out of my bed, grabbed the book and hugged it tight – if you randomly felt suffocated just a little bit around that time, it was me, for sure. 

I opened the pages and there you were – “in a hole in the ground.” Why do you have to be so adorable all the time, huh? It’s annoying how much you make me adore you.  

I knocked on your door, and you thought it was Gandalf. Typical of you, Bilbo, to forget me so soon! That left me just a little bit heartbroken. Still, I was happy to see that mildly irritated face of yours at the very mention of “adventure.” How do you do it, though, I wonder – make the most ridiculously adorable expressions? 

I was sitting right alongside you on that dining table when you were nervously shaking your leg, at the prospect of facing a dragon. You didn’t know your own strength, dear Hobbit. I did. I have always admired how you just dropped everything and ran away to have an adventure, going against your very nature. That moment fills me with tears of joy – imagining you hopping on the little road down the Shire, eager to catch the dwarves lest they go on without you. 

Your courage, when it was needed, your  kindness, where it was required, your homesickness, when it was called for, your love for your friends, when they were all you really had – was, is, and always will be a motivation to all of us, Bilbo.

You have no idea how loved you are, how adored. There are countless others, like me, who love to visit Bag-end again and again just for the fun of your company but it’s safe to say that NONE OF THEM LOVES YOU LIKE I DO; none of them values you like I do. 

And although you’ve left now – gone to Valinor with the Elves – remember that Bag-end will always belong to you; the shire will always be yours; the very word Hobbit will be yours and yours only. None other compares. 

15th member of the company,

R A I N