Kurt Cobain‘s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, has shared a statement marking the 30th anniversary of her late father’s death.
The statement accompanies an Instagram post featuring a photo R.E.M.‘s Michael Stipe took of the Nirvana frontman’s hands, which Frances’ mother, Courtney Love, previously shared. Frances writes that Kurt’s mother, Wendy, would tell her as a baby, “You have his hands.”
“I wish I could’ve known my Dad,” writes Frances, who was about 20 months old when Kurt died by suicide on April 5, 1994. “I wish I knew the cadence of his voice, how he liked his coffee or the way it felt to be tucked in after a bedtime story. I always wondered if he would’ve caught tadpoles with me during the muggy Washington summers, or if he smelled of Camel Lights & strawberry nesquik (his favorites, I’ve been told).”
“But there is also deep wisdom being on an expedited path to understanding how precious life is,” she continues. “He gifted me a lesson in death that can only come through the LIVED experience of losing someone. It’s the gift of knowing for certain, when we love ourselves & those around us with compassion, with openness, with grace, the more meaningful our time here inherently becomes.”
Frances adds that Kurt wrote a letter to her before she was born, which reads, “Wherever you go or wherever I go, I will always be with you.”
“He kept this promise because he is present in so many ways,” Frances says. “Whether it’s by hearing a song or through the hands we share, in those moments I get to spend a little time with my dad & he feels transcendent.”
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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