It was in that moment that I smiled for the first time since I had last seen her, and it was this along with the general feeling of tearful bitterness of her being gone forever thousands of miles away that made me pause for a moment in joyous despair. 

As I tried to compose myself, a faint melody sang softly from the nearby apartment of the den I was currently living in. The Gnarled wood of the floorboards, and door way almost seemed to breathe and sway with sorrow, almost, almost on the cusp of a breakdown, I read the second letter.   

It was in that moment that the world stopped.