Nick Cave shares beautiful message about communicating with his late son Arthur after his passing

The artist posted the emotional entry on his website 'The Red Hand Files', which allows fans to ask him questions

Nick Cave has written candidly about how he communicates with his late son Arthur, three years on from his passing.

The artist recently began a new dialogue with his fans via the website The Red Hand Files, encouraging any kind of questions or queries about his life, career and more.

The sixth ‘issue’ on The Red Hand Files sees Cave responding to a question from Vermont-based fan Cynthia, who asked: “I have experienced the death of my father, my sister, and my first love in the past few years and feel that I have some communication with them, mostly through dreams. They are helping me.

“Are you and Susie feeling that your son Arthur is with you and communicating in some way?”

Cave thanked Cynthia for her “beautiful question”, and then began to discuss how he still communicates with Arthur, who died in July 2015 at the age of 15.

“It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined,” Cave wrote first about his experience in dealing with grief.

Nick Cave statue hometown
Nick Cave

“Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence. 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,” he added.

“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.”

Cave then disclosed that he “feels the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there”.

“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.

“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.”

Last month, Cave and his Bad Seeds bandmates paid tribute to their pianist Conway Savage, who passed away at the age of 58.

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