There are some people who are so much part of the world you know and feel secure in that when they die, meaning that they depart forever and will never again be part of that dependable world which you have known for so long, you feel a special loss that goes deep and you experience a sense of almost desperate longing that the death you have heard of will prove not to have happened and that the person will in fact be back in his place after all and that normality has returned. But it didn’t.
Naturally you feel this very acutely about close and beloved members of family. But there are others who bring on a similar feeling of irreparable loss because they were for so long an essential contributor to the good part of life and the world around you and you miss them deeply now that they are gone. Indeed the world you know will not be the same again and will be less good to live in. It is a strong feeling of loss, of some bright part of humanity gone when so much is dull and dark