Letting go of Isildur's Bane...
ghost·ing
ˈɡōstiNGnoun
the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.
I had a ring.
Now I don't.
Let me explain.
I had a friend. He became a friend to my wife as well. He was a family friend. We went places. Had experiences. Shared things. Gave gifts to each other. I believed that this person was a true friend.
I was dead wrong.
About everything.
One of the gifts he gave me was a ring.
It looked so nice on my Tolkien shelf. So shiny. It seemed to tie the whole shelf together. I would sometimes sit by my shelf and admire it. It was precious to me. It was mine. My precious.
Once the full ramifications of how we had been manipulated and deceived and betrayed by what we believed to be a friend at a time when we were still reeling from the death of our cat became clear to us, my wife and I decided that the best thing to do was to scrub his presence from our lives. To delete him like a corrupted file. To cast the negative energy out of our loving home and away from our family.
This was easy at first. We got rid of physical objects and digital memories.
This was not being done out of vengeance or with glee.
It was being done with the sole purpose of healing.
Then we came to the one ring....
I didn't want to let it go.
Gina talked to me and convinced me that this was for the best and I took her words seriously. I didn't take her as a conjurer of cheap tricks.
We placed the ring on a chain and decided that we would both bear the burden of it.
We stopped by a tree not far from our warm and cozy little home.
Dark forces and memories were all around us.
We set out on our journey.
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
There were moments of doubt.
Times when we wanted to give up...
Or turn back.
The road was perilous.
Gina reminded me that the darkness is only a passing shadow and that even darkness must pass.
I sat there pondering.
As I held the ring in my hand a thought occurred to me. If Professor Tolkien was alive today, he would be horrified that people carry around the ring. It was a symbol of all the evil and malignancy of the world. If you really wanted to honor the true spirit of the good in Tolkien's tales, you would have a nice meal with family. You would tend your garden. You would while away the day.
I knew then what I must do.
I went down to the water's edge...
And I cast the ring out.
I watched as the ripples rang out and then gradually disappeared.
We had come to journey's end.
The end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.
"Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the sea comes the end of our fellowship in middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep for not all tears are an evil."
Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Grey Havens, The Return of the King
