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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nOn the same day our country marked the milestone of more than 400,000 people dead from COVID, we were finally able to collectively acknowledge and grieve our loss. President-Elect Biden reminded us, \u201cTo heal we must remember. . . . It is important we do that as a nation. That\u2019s why we are here today.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the brief space between sundown and dusk, the simple and somber pre-inauguration memorial<\/a> was electrifying. Lori Marie Key, a Detroit nurse, sang \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d\u2014the same as she did on her shifts tending COVID patients to lift spirits amid all the heartbreak. Gospel singer Yolanda Adams then sang Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cHallelujah.\u201d<\/a> Along the entire length of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, 400 light pillars\u2014each representing 1,000 lives lost\u2014began to glow as darkness descended. The camera slowly zoomed out to reveal the illuminated waterway, Abraham Lincoln frozen in marble and time, the Potomac beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn Hebrew, the word hallelujah means to rejoice in praising God,\u201d I soon learned from Kyson Parks\u2019s<\/a> The Origin and History of the Song \u201cHallelujah,\u201d by Leonard Cohen<\/em>. Parks continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a bitter lament about love and loss . . . “Hallelujah,” the song teaches us, is a refrain worthy of times of celebration, of mourning, of regret, of catharsis, and reconciliation. Cohen’s song tells a story of broken love, true love remembered and mourned, guilt, penance, and of finding peace in the vicissitudes of brokenness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n How fitting for what we have been through. In our nation’s capital, the last line of the song\u2014\u201cIt\u2019s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah<\/a>\u201d soared over the Reflecting Pool as the lights came up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For some of us, Leonard Cohen\u2019s song marked the beginning as well as the end of Trump\u2019s presidency. On the first Saturday Night Live<\/em> after the 2016 election, Kate McKinnon–who had played Hillary Clinton throughout SNL\u2019s 2016 campaign skits–performed<\/a> it for SNL\u2019s Cold Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When McKinnon finished, she turned to the audience as Hillary and said, \u201cI\u2019m not giving up, and neither should you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tomorrow Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as our new President and Vice President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hallelujah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the same day our country marked the milestone of more than 400,000 people dead from COVID, we were finally able to collectively acknowledge and grieve our loss. President-Elect Biden reminded us, \u201cTo heal we must remember. . . . … Continue reading