Chris Cornell’s brother Peter has posted the following on Instagram:
At home with my main dudes today. How else would you celebrate New Years Eve in SoCal? 2017. I’m sifting through my thoughts about this year and trying to remove emotion as the vehicle I use to transport it into history. It’s tough. Tears became a staple at my house this year. The loss under my roof was not exclusively mine. 2017 kicked us in the balls over and over again. Lessons learned man. Lessons learned.
Humans are resilient creatures, but I did battle with resiliency this year. In the end it was really the only path but I chose it stubbornly and reluctantly. Too many times have I chosen self destruction or anger or defiance in the face of dark times. There was plenty of those to go around and I can self-justify my downfalls in the blink of an eye. So it came down to really dissecting the horrors and digging into the deepest hell to try and find any shred of reason or hope or meaning. My “go to” is to kill the pain or run away or demolish any good left in my world and take down as many innocent bystanders as I can as I descend. Somehow I listened to a different voice in my head this time.
I started visiting my Brother every week. The only reason I had for doing so was the simplest of motives… it’s what people do. They go to the gravesite and they visit their loved ones. They kneel down and they have a conversation. I am nothing close to a pious or spiritual or religious man. But the conversations I’ve had with my departed little Brother are the closest thing I’ve ever had that I would call a spiritual experience. This really fucked me up.
There was no wiggle room to embark on a path of self destruction to make the universe pay for my losses. How inconvenient to have to behave like a decent, adult human, but what is the option here? My hand is forced by the desperate need to pay tribute to and honor my Brother. So I won’t beat 2017 up as it walks out the door. I will coddle it and love it and with the greatest humility that I can muster gratefully cherish it for the light it has shone on my meager being. I wish ALL AND EVERYONE A BLESSED AND HAPPY NEW YEAR. Luke 6:31
