The February air in Seattle was gray and wet, the kind that seeps into your bones. Inside the Cobain-Love house, it was quieter than usual, though a child’s laugh still occasionally broke through the silence, bouncing down the hallway like a spark of life that refused to die out.

Today was your birthday.

You would have been twenty-eight. But instead, your parents—Kurt and Courtney—were left to carry the absence of you.

2022 – The Day Everything Changed

The day you gave birth had started full of hope. You were only twenty-five, young but determined to be a mother. A single mom, but strong-willed, just like both of your parents in different ways. Everyone said you had Kurt’s quiet shyness but Courtney’s fiery streak when you needed it.

Labor came suddenly, eight days after Kurt’s birthday. He’d joked that the baby had waited politely to give him his own celebration before arriving. But things didn’t go as planned. Complications set in fast. You lost too much blood too quickly.

Doctors rushed, nurses panicked, machines beeped, but in the middle of it all, you were calm. You whispered something about how your baby should know he’s loved, no matter what happened. Then, before anyone could stop it, you were gone.

25 years old. A daughter, a mother, a life cut open too soon.

The baby survived—your little boy, born wailing into the sterile hospital room at the very same moment you slipped away. Kurt swore he saw your face in his tiny features right then.

Courtney collapsed when they told her. Kurt walked out into the cold February rain and smoked a cigarette with shaking hands, not even realizing it had burned down to the filter. He’d survived things he shouldn’t have, back in 1994, and now here he was—living on while his daughter didn’t. The guilt carved into him deeper than any song he’d ever written.

2025 – Three Years Later

They never touched your room. The Nirvana posters stayed, curling slightly at the edges. The stacks of CDs you’d collected sat untouched, your handwriting still on the covers. Your desk still had the doodles you’d left in the margins of an old notebook, little flowers and scribbles. Even the clothes in your closet still hung there, like you might come back and reach for them one morning.

Sometimes Kurt would sit on your bed and play guitar quietly, not Nirvana songs, just soft little melodies he never wrote down. Courtney, on the other hand, came in less often. It hurt her too much. When she did, she always sprayed a little of your perfume in the air, just to remind herself.

Your son—three now—knew this room as “Mommy’s room.” He would toddle in with his crayons and sit on the carpet, drawing pictures of his “Mommy in the sky.” He didn’t understand death, not really. To him, you were someone who lived in pictures, someone who looked a little like him, someone he somehow felt even if he couldn’t remember you.

Your Birthday

On February 28th, 2025, your birthday, Kurt woke early. He made pancakes with little smiley faces in blueberries, because you used to make those for yourself when you were sad. He set one aside on a plate in your room, a strange ritual he’d started—making a plate for you, even though no one touched it.

Courtney baked a cake, though she burned it a little, swearing under her breath like always. She set it down on the table anyway, sticking in four candles: three for the years since your son had been alive, and one for you, the one who couldn’t blow them out.

At dinner, your son bounced in his chair. “It’s Mommy’s birthday!” he announced, grinning with all his teeth. He clapped his hands while Kurt lit the candles.

“Go ahead, kiddo,” Kurt said softly.

The boy leaned forward, puffing out his cheeks, and blew. The candles flickered, then died. He giggled and clapped. “Mommy’s happy now.”

Kurt’s throat closed. He stood abruptly and walked into your room, where he shut the door and sat on your bed "I Love You Kiddo"

Courtney joins him then your son