Musings

Musings

            How many times in my life have I wished you were here beside me, master?  The question was rhetorical, of course.  Even if you can still hear me from where you are, you have not come from there to speak to me in years.  Not since I was young, when my failure with Anakin first became evident.

            I am old now.  Tired.  I hate this planet.  That last thought, however, is the Dark Side.  I must be careful.  I know too well the cost of such feelings…No, I must not think of that now.  Even so, all I think about are my mistakes, my failures, for they are all that come to my mind after all these years.

            I underestimated that Sith, master, the first one we encountered all those years ago.  He was a match for you on Tatooine, more so than you probably ever would have admitted, even to me.  When we encountered him on Naboo, I did not take his threat seriously.  I believed that together, you and I could defeat anyone, anything, as we always had before.  Did that arrogance cost you your life?  And what about my training of Anakin?  Where did I go wrong?  What happened that turned him from my Padawan to a Sith monster, the same sort of creature that killed you, a man for whom Anakin had the utmost respect?  He wept harder than I did, master, when you died, a fact that I am ashamed to admit.  Its not that I didn't grieve, Master, far from it.  I simply never could cry.  I think I was too shocked and the grief was too deep for that, even after weeks and months and years of being without you.  I've always tried to carry on alone; it has been difficult, especially with the circumstances of the last years and the fall of the Republic.  I always tried my best…can I be blamed if those attempts ended in failure?

            You know Master, your daughter had words for me right before she was killed by Darth Vader (I will not call him Anakin Skywalker…that monster is not the man I once trained).  In some ways, she was wiser than I.  Clearer sighted, at any rate.  "The life of a Jedi is built upon self-denial and self sacrifice.  My lot is to make the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the Force.  Your destiny is far more difficult.  You must live.  I know you will blame yourself, Obi-Wan, even though I firmly believe that there is no one at fault here.  Destiny is a powerful enemy, and it was against us all from the start."  She really believed that, Master.  She did not believe any of this was my fault.

            I'd like to believe that, Master.  But my optimism died the same moment the Sith's lightsaber struck you down.  If I had been faster, more in tune with the Force, then perhaps I could have prevented your death.  I was once told "The most powerful words in the universe are 'If only…'" I believe this, Master.  If only I had somehow managed to get away from those laser walls.  If only you had given ground so we could have fought him together.

            If only we had known the true evil Palpatine possessed before the Sith who killed you was ever trained.  If only Palpatine had not taken Anakin and trained him in the ways of the Dark Side…If only I had done a better job, a closer job, of training Anakin as I swore to you I'd do…If only I had somehow managed to stop the bloodshed before it even began, all those years ago, when you first fell.  If only…

            I cannot go on thinking in this vein, Master.  The only direction I should look is forward.  Backwards is too painful.  Or, as you once said to me, mere days before you died, "Don't center on your anxieties, Obi-Wan.  Keep your concentration on the here and now where it belongs."  It is difficult, Master, to follow those instructions now as I, an old man, sit and do nothing but watch the sands of this world blow endlessly by.  Most of my feelings of age have undoubtedly come from my exile here underneath this burning sun.  These thoughts too…I have nothing to do here expect remember while watching young Luke grow from afar.  I can only wait for the Force and destiny to once again have use for me.

            I want you here beside me now, Master, to hold me and comfort me as you did when I was still a child.  You would talk to me in your soft voice that, if I try hard enough, I can still hear as an echo in my mind, a whispered memory that will never die until I do.  Maybe not even then.  You would hold me close against you, warm, and safe and wrapped inside your robe, and I would know for certain that I would be safe.  The universe was mine then, provided you were beside me.  I wanted that to last forever.

            Nothing in this life, I have realized now, lasts forever.  Not you, not the young man I was, not even the Jedi or the Republic.  Each is past, remaining as only a memory of an old man in exile.  Much of that, I fear, is my own fault.

            Enough of this.  What is done, is done, and I can do nothing to change it.  Master Windu (he too, is dead now…one of countless examples of my failure and Anakin's) told me, as you often did, to mind my feelings, but after thirty years of doing that, I am tired, Master.  I want to rid myself of these memories and be with you as we were when I was young and the universe was ours to discover.

            The suns are setting now, Master.  It really is beautiful.  Even so, I feel something coming…I am not sure what.  Tomorrow, maybe the day after, I believe that destiny will call again.

            You said I would be a great Jedi, Master.  Perhaps, even though I am old, this is my chance.  Either way, I pray I can rectify the errors of my past and help bring a future back to these dark times.  I think that it will be my duty to prepare those who must fight their way, but this time the path will not be mine.  The future lies not with me, but with them.

            Luke.  Leia.  The future is yours, the same as the past is mine.