Wow. This also really hits home for me too, as does the incredible comments. I just had a conversation with my sister-in-law who had a traumatic brain injury two years ago. Life has been crappy and she wants to believe that it happened for a reason--she needs this truth to cope with life as it is now. I get that.
Obviously, our situations are oh so different, but I cannot help but strongly say, Bullshit things happen for a reason. Bear did not die for a reason. God or Jesus or the Universe did not need him or make him die. He died. Terrible things happen for no reason. I suppose along that same vein, good things happen, also for no reason sometimes.
Positive things can come to me, to my life, to the lives of people I have connected with after Bear's death, but that does not mean he died for a reason. I am not a better person because Bear died. I am a better person because he lived.
"Each one a world. Still enormous, still mind-boggling." Wow.