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What a lovely sentiment!

Fare you well my nightingale

It's the first time I dare to tell: Last year at the middle of november I was sitting on our garden bench in Germany near Munich next to a pakistani friend of my family who helped doing some late garden work before winter.

He came as a refugee to Germany one year before and so we mostly still were talking in English.

Suddenly we discovered 2 strange looking birds next to us behind the wire-mesh fence in the neighbour's Garden.

In November there are only black crows and very few small oscine birds left in the gardens.

These 2 birds were neither of them. One was as tall as a crow but beautifully black and white. The other one was smaller and less beautiful, simply brown.

They were sitting between 2 bushes close to us, looking at each other for such a long time, doing nothing special, that we thought this was really strange.

Somehow tame and very different looking as if not birds of the same species I thought they looked like string puppets of a puppet theatre.

My friend who has studied biology before his escape to Europe said the beautiful bird was a crow.

"And the other one his inconsiderable wife?" I asked.

"No," he answered and checked the english translation for the species he was thinking of at his mobile: "The other one is a nightingale."

I really got frozen because I never ever before saw a nightingale. In November? Here?
But my friend was sure whether this made the bird's behaviour completely strange or not!

Unbelievable!

And then I felt happy.

I am so grateful for this forum, now when I hear LC songs, and I still do it frequently, usually sort of a binge listening for a week or so, it feels good to come here and read all the older posts, here I am among friends who loved him just as much.

I MISS HIM.

I miss Leonard, even though with time the acceptance has come that it was his time to go. I had two dreams about him, one on the first Saturday just after his passing on, the other six months to the day, and these visits were great gifts in softening the sharpness that such a finality brings.

Today I was reading a bit from the book "Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen". Leonard was tuning his guitar for the third time in Nashville's Exit-In. A drunk guy quipped, "Good enough for folk music!" Leonard finished tuning and responded, "Yeah, but not good enough for eternity." It is now. All of it.

That's one of my essential impressions of Leonard: the dignity in the effort, of always fine tuning for eternity in all its facets.

Leonard Cohen (1934 - 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-1lGBwiBho

Donovan Tribute to Leonard Cohen

I join the many tributes today for the passing on of the Great Poet Leonard Cohen.

https://www.facebook.com/DonovanOfficia ... 16032993:0

The day I learned of Leonard's death marked two months to come of depression and tears, with no relief, as my tears and depression toggled between my loss of Leonard, and Hillary Clinton's loss, leaving us with Trump, and all the nightmares to come. I wish so much that Leonard had been here throughout these past years, with his wisdom and his calm, to help us through, and that he were here today to be a part of our celebration. I miss you in so many ways, Leonard.

i didn't realize today was the anniversary of leonard's death until i came to browse the forum. my husband is going to the store now for groceries & i've asked him to pick up a yarzheit candle. the day is mostly over but i won't light the thing anyhow- my father-in-law is in the next room on hospice, the oxygen concentrator a kind of soundtrack for endings.

it is so difficult to make sense of the years- to think that leonard has been dead for 8 years. 8 years. but it is also so hard to believe that he was alive, here with all of us. remembering him today returns an old longing to me- the kind of longing i used to think was for something or someone but is sweeter, i think now, unfulfilled. here's to this particular sweetness, & its ache. it feels like mercy.

It has been a long time since i visited the forum...
sad news all around,
Sue died, i met her last time on Hydra in 2020
Lorca and Adam against Korry ..
Leonard already dead for 8 years

looked through the paper
it makes me want to cry
i do what i have to do to get by

but listening and living with your poems and songs still makes me feel so happy,
carrying the memory of so many concerts in my heart
and being in contact with all the great people i met since my first event on Hydra
had an great impact on my life
thank you Leonard
love ute

Sorry for the nitpicking but Leonard passed away in 2016, that makes it 6 years ago and not 8 years as mentioned in the last two posts.

not nitpicking at all. please forgive my error. it's always a surprise when how i'm doing is reflected back to me. 6 years makes so much more sense! believable even.

People Leonard Cohen
Lives now in heaven
And there in heaven, he sleeps
At night in his brass bed
During the day Leonard Cohen
Walk in God's gardens
And he collects the apples from the apple trees
And Leonard Gives the apples to God's servant
And the servants make apple pie for Leonard's diner
They know that apple pie is Leonard's favourite dessert
After dinner, Leonard goes to bed
He gets his 8 hours of sleep a day
God loves Leonard
And Leonard loves God
Leonard has a good relationship with God
People Leonard is safe in heaven
Always remember that Leonard Cohen is not in pain anymore

Aldo Gabbay

abby wrote: ↑Tue Nov 08, 2022 1:27 am it is so difficult to make sense of the years- to think that leonard has been dead for 8 years. 8 years. but it is also so hard to believe that he was alive, here with all of us. remembering him today returns an old longing to me- the kind of longing i used to think was for something or someone but is sweeter, i think now, unfulfilled. here's to this particular sweetness, & its ache. it feels like mercy.

When I posted that & my error was pointed out, I was filled with shame, & then the error stayed at the top of the entire forum for two years. I spent the last two years barely coming around because there I was, Leonard's biggest fan, & I'd made a clerical error at the top of the forum & it was hanging around for posterity. Funsies.

My father-in-law died in the morning on November 9, 2022, the morning after I made that error. He died while I went to swim laps. I heard his death rattle & I still went to swim laps, compulsively natured gal that I am.

When I came home he was dead. I have a literal masters degree in thanatology, the study of death & dying- that's why I knew the sound I heard was a death rattle, which is just a cool name for the sound of air passing over mucous & secretions that build up in the throat as a person acutely nears death.

Morphine quells a death rattle, there was some in the fridge. But I went swimming see & Pepe died & I should've known better, about the year Leonard died too.


I knew better but I didn't know the way I thought I did.

I found out last week my mother-in-law gave Pepe the morphine, his last breaths were just that noisy.

Hello dear Abby xo, we are always much harder on ourselves than with others. I don't know why, it must serve some purpose. I'm sorry that you missed being beside your father in-law as he passed but it sounds like you had been with him shortly before and still part of his journey. I personally struggle with regrets, I should haves, if only... Sometimes, I like to imagine the 'if only's, and spend some time with imagined different outcomes. I think this is okay for small amounts of time as long as I don't get lost in it.

Personally I am not good at remembering years. It was an easy mistake to make and not one I would have noticed.