Title: Scars on the Heart
Summary: A Jedi Master records a letter of goodbye.
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns everything even remotely related to Star Wars.
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Read the companion piece to this story, Why Couldn't I Save Him? which occurs before Scars on the Heart.
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Master,
Losing someone you love leaves a scar on the heart that never quite heals. You told me that once when I was in agony over the loss of my first apprentice. You were right. The scar remains, even though the pain has lessened. You told me that too, that the pain of such a loss, while never would it be gone, it would become easier to live with over time. To this day, I'm not sure if I believed you then. I'll be honest, as I sit here recording this letter, I am not sure if I believe you now. I have many scars on my heart, scars that one loss after another has put there. Losing you is simply the latest. Pain has clouded nearly my entire life. It took me a long time to understand that the same was true for you. I deeply wish I'd been a better Padawan for you. You deserved someone that was worthy of your dedication and hard work. Whoever that student might have been, I know it wasn't me. From the moment we shook hands on that Nubian ship as it left Tatooine, your destiny and mine became intertwined. For whatever reason, the Force saw fit to place us on a path we could walk together. Then somewhere I stepped off that path and onto another. You were always there for me, though. When I skinned my knee, you were there with the bandages. When I broke my arm in a fall, you were there to help soothe away the pain. When I found myself in the grasp of the dark side, you were there to pull me back. In a life full of missteps and wrong decisions, you were always there for me, and now you're not and I feel so incredibly lost. Over the course of our years together as Master and Padawan you saved my life on more than one occasion. I was always grateful to you for that, even if I never told you. But when I was hanging over what might have become my fiery grave, drowning in my own anger and hate, you did more than save my life. You literally reached out and saved my soul. I never told you what that meant to me. You might have fallen to your death with me. I didn't understand at the time that you were willing to give your life to save my soul. I didn't understand that until I was faced with the same decision concerning my own apprentice. Now suddenly I find myself alone. In the hustle and bustle of daily life in the Jedi Temple, I can almost forget that you are no longer here. It's the quiet times, late at night when the absence of your presence in my life fills me and I find that it is no longer easy to draw breath. In those times, my mind drifts back to the day I left my mother so many years ago. I was afraid; I can admit that now, all these years later. I clearly remember asking her if I would ever see her again. She wondered what my heart was telling me. As I knew then that I would see my mother again, so I know now that I will see you again. We'll meet one another in the Force, my Master. That thought lessens the pain of your not being here. But only when that day actually comes to pass, when I too am accepted into the peaceful embrace of the Force, will the scar on my heart created by your death be healed. Until then, I shall pass on what I have learned, what you taught me. Your lessons will live, even though you no longer do. Goodbye Obi-Wan, my Master.
Your Padawan, Your son,
Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker