Frances Bean Cobain marked the 30th anniversary of her father Kurt Cobain’s death with a heartfelt and somber tribute.
On Friday, the artist and model shared a series of throwback photos of her dad ― including two she described as “the last time we were together,” showing her alongside him as a baby ― on Instagram with a lengthy note reflecting on her personal grief.
“I wish I could’ve known my Dad,” wrote Frances Bean Cobain, whose mother is musician Courtney Love. “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 favourites, I’ve been told).”
Now 31, Frances Bean Cobain was just a year old when her father died. Still, she said she’s found “deep wisdom” in having experienced the loss of a loved one at an early age.
“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,” she explained.
Kurt Cobain was 27 when he died by suicide in 1994. The Seattle-based musician rose to fame as the frontman of the era-defining alternative rock band Nirvana.
In the early ’90s, Nirvana dominated the Billboard charts with its landmark albums “Nevermind” and “In Utero.” Though the band’s grip on mainstream pop culture came to a premature end after Cobain’s death, it continue to be cited by modern artists, including Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey, as an influence.
Later in her note, Frances Bean Cobain recalled a passage from a letter her father had written to her before she was born.
“The last line of it 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,” she wrote.
She ended her tribute with a poignant message for “anyone who has wondered what it would’ve looked like to live along side the people they have lost.”
“I’m holding you in my thoughts today,” she wrote. “The meaning of our grief is the same.”