There is no why, of course--depending on your philosophical leanings, there either is no why, period, or there's no why because we're not allowed to see inside the mind of God. You could say that because of what happened this week, our lives will drift into some subtly different direction than they would have otherwise--the butterfly effect, if you will. There are in-between possibilities too-you can assume God's existence, but perhaps he just put natural laws in place and walked away to do other things. In other words, even if you looked in God's mind, he'd be thinking about other stuff. I don't believe in an "active" God, meaning one who guides every little thing, so I tend toward the view that if he exists, then he's not particularly concerned with individuals. So, again, no real Why, I guess. I just wish I could answer the question for you, if it would make you feel better. *hugs
( ... )
From the God-as-writer view, I tend to look at it the way I look at writing a story: I almost always know how it's going to start and how it's going to end. It's the stuff in between that's a bit up in the air. I know what *has* to happen, generally speaking, to arrive at that endpoint, but as characters grow and change in my mind, I end up going in slightly different directions. With a bit of stretching, you could probably work a free-will metaphor into that.
I take this approach most of the time -- thinking that knowing what will happen is not the same as watching it happen. Like, you can never read Jane Austen on the theory that you know everybody's going to get married off, but then you never get to see Lizzie being snarky or Mr Collins being fatuous and so forth.
I confess that I sometimes read the ends of mysteries first, just to get the suspense over with so I can pay attention to the characters and how they got there. It can be more fun to read with advance knowledge, so that when character X smiles that crooked smile I know it's because he knows who stuck it to poor dead Harry. That's also what makes re-reading so much fun.
I'm so so sorry. I know how you feel (and I know you've heard this a million times), because I lost my loved doggy back in 2000, and I'd had her since I was four. What writers tend to do is obsess over things (not necessarily a bad thing, and hey, maybe obsess is a very strong word for this situation) until we can get over it. At least you didn't go journalist mode (block all of your human feelings and try to figure out what went wrong/why) instead.
Your last paragraph is my life, having just lost my kitty, Shadow, but with another four psychotropic medications on top of the Lamictal.
Remember that it's not only good for you to cry, but NECESSARY for you to as part of the grief process (believe me... my therapist has been pushing me on this point).
About the being too attached to him thing, being able to leave the nest- you're totally spot-on. My cat is kind of like that for me- at one point, about a year or two ago, I was limiting my search for colleges to colleges that allow pets in the dorms. I've moved past that now, but I don't know how I'll deal without my Missy. Coincidentally, the lifespan of the average house cat is about from the time when we first got him (I was 7) to when I'll graduate college. Missy will have been strictly a childhood pet, allowing me to leave home and be able to live in some little craphole apartment that probably wouldn't allow pets anyway, without the expense of litter, food, and allergy medicine (for me).
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My thoughts are with you.
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Remember that it's not only good for you to cry, but NECESSARY for you to as part of the grief process (believe me... my therapist has been pushing me on this point).
Take care.
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But still.... *hugs*
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