From Leonard Cohen’s final letter to his dying muse, Marianne Ihlen. She died in July 2016, and Cohen followed her shortly after, dying in November 2016.

“The what ifs are the worst part, aren’t they? I cannot lie to you, I’ve had many a moment when I’ve tried to make sense of all of the futures we could’ve had, but didn’t. Some of them aren’t pretty. Some of them end the same way we did or worse, but the good ones? The ones where you’re in my arms? The ones where your laughter spills forth effortlessly? The ones where you don’t leave, you only come closer with every passing day? Those are the ones that break me down the most. Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t so prone to dreaming. Sometimes, I feel crazy for daring to imagine. I feel crazy for thinking about what it’d be like if we were under this starless sky together for a change, but I’m not crazy in those moments at all. I’m just missing you. I’m missing you, and that makes it hard to not think of what could’ve been. When it feels like someone is so close but yet so painfully far, when there’s a void in your life in the shape of someone’s smile, and a song called their laugh is missing from your life’s playlist, it’s no wonder moments like these come up. When the fog clears and the dreams meet reality, I like to think that you’re still smiling and laughing, even now. Somehow that puts me at ease a little, even though I’m not the reason these days. At least somewhere, somehow, that sight and sound are still in the world. I think we’re going to be okay. I don’t really know what okay means. Does it mean it stops hurting completely? Probably not, I don’t know about you, but I’m not the best at stopping missing someone. Regardless, I think we’ll be okay somehow. It might not be now, but we’ll be okay.”