‘Grief is non-negotiable’: Nick Cave’s beautiful open message about late son

Aussie rock icon Nick Cave and his wife Susie were left devastated when their 15-year-old son Arthur died after falling from a cliff three years ago in a tragic accident.

Arthur fell to his death after walking along the chalk cliffs in Brighton, England. He had tragically posted a selfie he took there just hours before on social media.

Now, Nick, 61, has shared a candid and beautiful message about how he still communicates with his son, while his wife speaks to him in her dreams.

A fan shared an emotional message on his website The Red Hand Files – where Nick encourages people to ask him whatever they like – revealing she had lost her father, sister and first love, but still communicates with them in her dreams.

“They are helping me. Are you and Susie feeling that your son Arthur is with you and communicating in some way?” she asked.

Nick, who is frontman of band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, shared a lengthy open message in response, thanking the woman, named Cynthia, for her question and explaining that – to him – love and grief come hand in hand.

“That’s the deal. That’s the pact,” he added. “Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.”

The musical star admitted that grief can feel overwhelming, leaving us “trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence”.

He went on: “It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe. Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence.

“These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness.”

Following his stunning open message, Nick shared his own personal experience of grief following Arthur’s death, admitting he feels him constantly – whether his son’s spirit is there or not.

“I feel the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there,” he wrote. “I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there. He visits Susie in her sleep regularly, speaks to her, comforts her, but he may not be there.

“Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas, essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity.

Read more: This father’s grief is something we can all share

“Like ideas, these spirits speak of possibility. Follow your ideas, because on the other side of the idea is change and growth and redemption. Create your spirits. Call to them. Will them alive. Speak to them.

“It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed. With love, Nick.”

Do you still communicate with a lost loved one? Do you believe there is something out there for us after death?