(Posted April 5, 2000 (the six year aniversary of Kurt Cobain's death) to the Internet Nirvana Fan Club Bulletin Board)

Kurt Cobain was not a god, he was a human being. If you try to live your life as he did then you have serious problems. Kurt was a humble man. He once said that he would never want to see "Cobain is God" spraypainted anywhere. Putting him above everything else takes away from his music and his band, not to mention his life. We shouldn't remember him for the way he died, but what he did while he was alive.

He was a man. He was responsible for some of the most emotional, painful, and beautiful music to come along since the Beatles. But he was a human being with problems just like the rest of us.

I remember Kurt today for who he was, the music he made, what he stood for, and the life he lived, especially since his teenage years were very much like my own. I don't remember him as a god, just as a departed friend. I did not listen to Nirvana when he died, but within a matter of months I was among the converted. I remember what it was like on the day his body was found... I saw how much some members of my class were hurting, and it really touched me that this man that none of them had ever met meant so much to them. One student even made the four-hour drive to Seattle for the vigil. I was amazed that even at a Catholic School, we prayed for a man who had committed suicide, which to Catholics is a cardinal sin. That touched me deeply. By the time I first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit 6 months later, I was converted.

Kurt is survived by his wife Courtney Love, and his daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Courtney may be outspoken and undeniably bizarre, but I don't think there's any question that she loved and still loves Kurt deeply. While I don't approve of many of the things she does, she is still Kurt's widow. She has been through far more in her life than any of us will ever know. She may be schizophrenic and she may be a pathological liar, but surely she is still a loving woman at heart, as evidenced by her protectiveness of Frances Bean.

All of this may be trifle to some of you, but this is my eulogy for Kurt, a departed friend and not a god. May he find the peace he failed to attain in his natural life.

-Matt Reeder.
mareede@ilstu.edu