When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That's about all you can do. Leonard Cohen
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—Leonard Cohen

Sadness makes a lady weary...

I woke today to the news of Leonard Cohen's passing and I sat at the breakfast table, listening to Hallelujah because I needed to wrap myself in his voice, hot tears leaking down my face.

"Oh," Liam said. "You're crying."

They didn't know what to do with me.

"He was one of my favourite people in the world," I said, choking on my words, kissing them goodbye and ushering them out the door while they looked at me with a kind of 'what's up with mom?' wonderment.

I am emotionally fragile. This week has nearly killed me. I want to curl up in a little nest of blankets and listen to the echo of Leonard reciting 'My Lady Can Sleep'. I want to disappear for a time, to revel in grief because, though it hurts, it is one of life's most precious gifts.

He was my guy. He was the provocative, raw, boundary-pushing artist who ultimately inspired my own artistic aspirations.

I remember the moment I found him, a stained paperback book of poetry on the high school library shelf. Opening those pages opened my eyes. I'd always thought truth had to be placated with flowers. His poetry gave me permission to be honest. He taught me that vulnerability is the most beautiful of all the abilities.

Leonard is quoted as saying, "I was 15 when I first became deeply touched by the rhythm and structure of words..." Well, when I was 15, I became deeply touched by the rhythm and structure of him. He touched a place within me that fiction never reached.

I will mourn him deeply because he touched me deeply. We lost a beautiful soul this week; it's my impassioned prayer that we never lose his spirit.

Fare thee well my nightingale
I lived but to be near you
Though you are singing somewhere still
I can no longer hear you

—Leonard Cohen, Nightingale