In Miami’s cemeteries rest those cast away by Cuba’s Castro regime: thousands of Cuban-Americans who never lived to see real change on the island they left behind.

“An icon has extinguished and that there might be a brighter future,” Trunie Montaner told CTV News.

At one point, Montaner says her family was close with Fidel Castro. On Monday, she came to her parents’ graves to tell them of Castro’s death.

"I came to tell them about the good news,” she said. “I am sure that in the place where they are, they are going to be very happy about it."

For many Cuban exiles, Castro’s death only reminds them of decades of loss.

“I just wish my grandfather was here alive to see,” Herman San Martin told CTV News,

Coincidentally, Monday also marked the first scheduled commercial flight from Miami to Havana in 50 years.

Juan Antonio Blanco of the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba was a Cuban diplomat for 20 years. He says President Barack Obama badly handled negotiations with Cuban president Raul Castro.

"The Obama government, now and again and again and again gave away one chip after another of what could have been chips for a negotiating settlement,” he told CTV News.

Such a sentiment is shared by President-elect Donald Trump, who repeatedly promised to renegotiate a deal with Cuba during his campaign. Today, via Twitter, he said that’s still his plan.

Many in Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood appear to agree.

Sussanna Garcia says she is counting the days until Trump’s inauguration. She’s confident that he will stand up to the Cuban government.

"Until we get some type of concessions, like I said, they haven't given up anything and we have given up so much,” she told CTV News.

Responding to Trump’s tweets, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest today warned that, "To cancel all of that would deal a significant economic blow to those Cuban citizens."

Many in Little Havana, however, doubt it could get much worse.

With a report from CTV’s Peter Akman in Miami