Mood: sad
Topic: "Tom Bombadil isDying"(7)
It is cancer, returning, spreading, through soft tissue and into bone. Years have turned into decades, and Frodo's good friend, who has lived to inspire so many to heights otherwise unobtainable, is again ravaged by that which portends the day when he shall be no more. Frodo is bearing the burden alone, telling not Samwise nor sharing the loss to be with others, who cannot comprehend the magnitude of the loss to come.
"I Yam What I Yam, I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" is what Frodo's friend told his own father so many years ago when he departed the worlds of success and honor in order to return to a small town, to teach, to coach, and to counsel the generation to follow. To that moment, Frodo did not understand, and was singularly involved in an effort to change the mind of his friend. That is, until he heard the words of Popeye.
Perhaps, in a Dickensian moment, Frodo sensed that there is no greater love nor sacrifice than that of he who knows what it is that he was meant to do, and that he goes therefore and does so. Frodo wanted Tom Bombadil to go back to the College of the Shire and to help brave Charlie go beyond the 157th position, and to make all the world safe for those who truly believe that education is the only answer. Frodo's arrogance was conflicted by the reality of the scythe that waits, for all.
It is good that Tom got to know and love Olive Oyl. Frodo will wish that he could have shared one more hamburger with his old friend, and for that he would have surely paid on Tuesday.