Sometimes it's not goodbye, it's see you soon

My Great-Great Aunt Beatrice died last week. The world seems dimmer, somehow less magical than it was before. She was my last Great-Great relative. I've always wondered how people bore the passing of everyone before them, since such grief would only be exaggerated in time. Now I know, or at least I think I do. As the years in front of you become fewer than the years behind, it becomes less "good-bye" and more like "see you soon". And if there is dancing in Heaven, then I'm sure that is what she's doing. She was a dear, dear woman. Sweet and warm, with laughing eyes and a twinkling soul. The type of person that makes you certain you won't meet another of that kind again. Unique not in the snowflake way, but rather, in the way of the big bang. So while the lives of those around her were marked by her kindnesses, now there is only a darkness where her light once shone.