Perspective: Aussie rocker Nick Cave lost his teenage son 7 years ago. Just as he finished a book about grief, the unthinkable happened.
How have you and your family been able to create meaning through such devastation?These are only a few of many. “I hear from grieving parents all the time,” Cave told me. “It is truly devastating to see the difference between the letters from fathers who have lost a child and letters from mothers who have lost a child.
It’s clear that these letter-writers trust Cave’s capacity to recognize them exactly as they are. While so many common cultural depictions of grief gravitate toward opposite extremes — presenting either a portrait of relentless torment, or an inspirational message of perseverance that glosses over the raw agony of loss — Cave’s writing offers a more nuanced, unflinching view of both obliteration and hope.
“Because of the anonymous nature of the letters, it is clear that many people are saying the things they are saying for the first time. Because, you know, there is no adequate language around grief, and people don’t want to talk about these things because they understand that there are constraints on the extent of their sufferings — that there is a sell-by date to grief,” he told me. “So, they ... write their letters, and I read them, and well, they help me, and perhaps I help them. I hope so.
“It was as if the experience of grief enlarged my heart in some way. I have experienced periods of happiness more than I have ever felt before, even though it was the most devastating thing ever to happen to me,” he told O’Hagan. “I say all this with huge caution and a million caveats, but I also say it because there are those who think there is no way back from the catastrophic event. That they will never laugh again. But there is, and they will.
As he faces a new grief, Cave carries with him this more evolved understanding of what lies ahead. From the stage, through his letters, and now in his book, Cave illuminates a way back to the world after calamity — a path that is his to walk, again.“I have learned that things get better, in time. I know that fundamentally,” he told me. “I also know that there is a terrible beauty that exists beyond the borders of grief, where we can become connected to the world in a startling way.
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