Saturday Photo: After a Very Dark Week, Looking for the Light

Last Sunday we celebrated birthdays--Elin's, Lee's and mine--because it was one day we all could get together.  It was great fun, and I was very pleased that Lukas and Sophie had taken my suggestion and got me Leonard Cohen's new CD You Want It Darker.  

On Tuesday I listened to part of it in the car on my way to a book discussion club, before the results began coming in on the horrendous 2016 presidential election.  On Thursday, still shaken from the election returns, I listened to the rest coming back from another book discussion.  I also thought of the fabulous sunset we had had that afternoon--bands of clouds and reds and purples that rivaled the last of the fall's leaves.  What I didn't think, was that this could be viewed as an example of that Cohen line: "There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.  

And then the news came on Friday  that Cohen had died on Monday and had been buried on Thursday afternoon in Montreal.   I don't know what his politics were--probably fairly leftish--but I can't imagine that he would have been pleased with the Trump election.  Perhaps it was better that he died before the results were in.  But certainly, those with a mystical bent might see in the sunset on Thursday a glimpse of light that we all hope lies on the other side of the future.

The photo, taken this summer, is of the gates to the Shaar Hashomayim cemetery where Cohen was buried, a place a beauty and peace.  The sun is out this morning, so I'm looking for the light to guide my way.