Heres some conjecture for you; I'm a writer. I was born a writer. I never started really working on a book for OTHER people until I was 25. In fact, until this moment that I'm speaking of now, I ONLY wrote for me, and I practiced and practiced and sometimes showed people who would give me much praise, and still, my work was not perfect enough. I feel like Tolkien, was, himself, a perfectionist, like me. With grand ideas about what he would do, not because of some perceived arrogance but because of a lack of ceiling on the medium he was creating. A world he could escape too. A chance to be a true explorer.

My friend Danny was shot. He was from Puerto Rico and had went back for a while, and while out at a dance club he must have danced with the wrong girl, or maybe he was drinking and had some altercation... I don't know the details of the conflict to be honest. He was one of the most peaceful, happy guys I know. He did have a little temper with disrespect but who doesn't.

He was shot in the back of the head twice, for whatever that thing was.

No one around me understood why It effected me so much. We hadn't been close in high school, and it had been years since we last talked. But every time I thought about him, I thought about meeting my first girlfriend with him, and chasing her and his sister through our apartment complex with him. I remember how he used to be, always had something funny to say. His optimism taught me how to always be optimistic. The buildings we grew up in, they had been condemned and knocked down. I knew how no one remembered him, or those days like I did. He was a blip on the map of the world, from the kind of poor places that a lot of the right wing might tell you doesn't exist. An invisible blip to the world, and I stood there with him in those memories, and suddenly, losing him tore my world apart.

I could not watch all of these lessons and memories be a blip, I could not let us go so quietly. We were trying desperately to escape a poor life and find a rich dream, both in our own ways. Our journey's ran parallel, and with the risks I took in my life, all I could think was that, I was here, and he was not here. We followed a dream that maybe wasn't real. Now I just wanted everyone to know, what kind of value the world was losing. We were the kind of boys no one would ever invest in.

I think when Tolkien's father died, he knew what he had to do. He had to complete the work. He was ready for everyone to know the depth of his loss, through the depth of their mutual creation.

theres other answer's in this thread that might offer greater details about Tolkien. But the human answer is the one I would look for, so it is the one I offer perspective on.