Chapter 1: Me and Bilbo

The first great tragedy in my life came early. I was only twelve when my parents were drowned in a boating accident. I was asleep in bed the night they died, and when I awoke early the next morning and padded downstairs, all of my relatives were in the parlor discussing what to do with me. When I wandered in and asked what the matter was, they looked sympathetically at me. I forgot just who it was that broke the news to me. I do remember the shock and the dizziness, and I sat on the floor and pressed my back up against the wall and sobbed as my cousins tried to comfort me and my older relations argued about who would have to take me in. At last I felt a hand on my knee, and I looked up into my uncle Bilbo's face.

"You had better come and live with me, Frodo my lad." he said. "Then we can celebrate our birthdays together."

I wiped my eyes on a borrowed handkerchief and mustered a smile. I was very fond of Bilbo. He often told me stories about dragons and elves. We even had the same birthday–September 22.

So I went to live with Bilbo in his hole, Bag End. The first few months were very hard. I was grieving deeply for my parents, and I sometimes woke up at night after dreaming about their death. Bilbo was always there, no matter how late it was. He would sit on the edge of my bed and keep his arm around my shoulders, talking through my confusion and tears. In the morning, he never mentioned the dreams or said a word of blame. But something he always told me on those nights stuck with me.

"The great heroes in the old stories had hard things happen to them too, my lad." he said. "And yet they still went on. Beren Erchamion, and Lord Elrond and his family, and the wonderful people in all the stories I tell you. You must just go on. No matter how hard it gets, you must go on. That's the only way to live, my dear Frodo. The only way."

The nightmares soon ended, and I learned to love my uncle deeply. Bilbo gave me time to grieve. He allowed me to roam freely in the neighborhood and surrounding forests and fields, and I quickly began to recapture my typical carefree spirit. I was, for the most part, a normal hobbit tween (a fact that people who have known me only in adulthood find surprising.) But fate was calling to me, and I began to respond.