The last time I saw Lindómë, my mother, was the night before many of our kin were making ready to depart into the East. I remember how she stood in stony silence in the doorway to my room, her stare boring holes into my back as I made myself busy gathering the last of my few personal possessions that I could take with me.
When I finally got the courage to look over to her, I was surprised to see that all consternation had left her eyes only to be replaced by some desperate sadness. It was not an expression I liked to see one such as her make. I regret that I did not think to comfort her as I should have.
"Stay," she pleaded with me. "You do not have to go with them. You should not."
But, I think she knew that my mind had already been made up. There were no words she could speak that would have changed my mind in that moment. And there were no words that I could say to make this any easier - for her, for us. But I did try.
"You won't be left alone." Indeed, my youngest brother, who was most alike to her out of all her children in looks, temperament, and opinions, had chosen to stay. We three siblings had already made our farewells properly. Still, it did not seem to comfort her in that moment as I hoped it would. Instead, that horrible consternation and even bitterness arose in her expression again and I found that I could not bear to look at her anymore for the ache that it caused in my heart.
I arose with my possessions in hand and made to leave the room in Tirion that I had called my own for the last time, passing by her with my gaze averted. But, what she said next stopped me in my tracks and tore a wound into my heart that I have never been able to mend in full.
"You are my only daughter. Yet, you have always ever followed the ways of your father."
And that was the last thing I ever heard her say in bitterness and tears. Even now the guilt weighs on me. It grew heavier with each passing year as I grew stronger, wiser, and had my pride and preconceptions about the world torn to pieces. But the weight must be nothing compared the pain that she has borne. And all three of us - my father, my brother, and I - made her feel it.
There were so many things I could have said to her - that I wanted to take care of my other brother, that I felt a certain duty as the eldest, that I loved her, that we all loved her. I could have embraced her one last time. I should have.
Instead, I sighed and ignored the tug at my heartstrings, and the water in my vision, for fear that I should be made to look less committed, less ready for the journey at hand. I looked down to the ground as I gave her one last wave in farewell and walked away.
I should have done better.
But, in all my long years, none of my many wishes to do things all over again have ever been granted.
