Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, has posted a heartfelt tribute to her late father on the 30th anniversary of the Nirvana frontman's death.
Kurt took his own life at the age of 27, on April 5, 1994, when Frances Bean was just a year and a half old. Frances Bean, now 31, took to Instagram today to describe her feelings of loss and honor her late father.
Her full post, which is accompanied by a slideshow of family photos, reads as follows:
“30 years ago my dad's life ended. The second and third photos capture the last time we were together while he was still alive. His mother, Wendy, often pressed my hands against his cheeks and said, with a numbing sadness, “You have his hands.” She inhaled them as if it were her only chance to hold him a little longer, frozen in time. I hope she's holding her hands wherever they are. Over the past 30 years my ideas about loss have been in a continuous state of metamorphosis. The biggest lesson I have learned through grief for almost as long as I have been conscious is that it has a purpose. The duality of life and death, pain and joy, yin and yang, must exist side by side or none of this would have any meaning. It is the impermanent nature of human existence that throws us into the depths of our truest lives. It turns out that there is no greater motivation to lean into loving consciousness than knowing that everything ends.
I wish I had met my dad. I wish I knew the cadence of his voice, how he liked his coffee or how he felt when he snuggled up after a bedtime story. I always wondered if he had caught tadpoles with me during the muggy Washington summers, or if he smelled like Camel Lights and strawberry Nesquik (his favorites, I'm told). But there is also profound wisdom in embarking on an accelerated path toward understanding how precious life is. He gave me a lesson about death that can only come through the LIVED experience of losing someone. It is the gift of knowing with certainty that when we love ourselves and those around us with compassion, with openness, and with grace, the more meaningful our time here inherently becomes.
Kurt wrote me a letter before I was born. The last line says, “Wherever you go or wherever I go, I will always be with you.” He fulfilled this promise because he is present in many ways. Whether listening to a song or through the hands we share, in those moments I can spend time with my dad and he feels transcendent.
For anyone who has ever wondered what it would have been like to live alongside the people they have lost, I have you in my thoughts today. The meaning of our pain is the same.”
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, several rock musicians shared their thoughts on the late Nirvana leader with Strong consequences. Her tributes can be seen in the video below, followed by Frances Bean's Instagram post.
thanks to our partners at consequence.net
