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My wife and I have a ritual marathon viewing in the gloom of winter each year. This year it will be even more special, either way.

“Sam: It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

The sky is just beginning to lighten as I write this. It will be a day we will never forget - the day we held the line, or saw our country overrun. I believe we will hold, and live to press the fight forward again over ground surrendered in the past. I am happy to be here among you, side by side, on this day