SEATTLE, Wash — Saturday marks 29 years since Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was found dead in his Seattle home, but his legacy lives on in a variety of ways in the Emerald City.
"This is his house, in the back, and he used to come here apparently to smoke cigarettes," said Marisi Sojit, a music fan who came to his Viretta Park memorial bench this week to remember Kurt.
Cigarettes are among the items fans left on the bench, "to mourn Kurt," as Sojit put it.
But for Sojit, it's something in the way Kurt gave back to her-- and her partner-- two years prior.
"I came to come to be a part of the memorial," said Cayman Bendele. He said he had visited the bench on this same calendar day, two years ago.
That is when he met Sojit.
"I got told that she wanted to meet me, 'cause I walked up the stairs here and ever since then I stayed in Seattle," said Bendel.
"And we had this baby because of Kurt Cobain," said Sojit. "She loves Nirvana. Yeah, she loves it.”
"She’s definitely a grunge baby," said Bendele of their infant.
"The most grunge baby, yeah. You want a grunge story? This is it," said Sojit.
Their child is one of many living legacies of a man who was full of life.
"Kurt Cobain was an incredibly funny, dynamic person," said Karen Mason-Blair, a music photographer and Seattleite.
She is responsible for the famous images of the Nirvana bandmates in Santa hats, backstage at a show.
But even all these years later, as a mental health crisis remains, Blair said she believes Kurt would want Washingtonians to continue de-stigmatizing it.
"And that’s why he sings 'Come as You Are.' He wrote a song about lithium!" said Mason-Blair. “It’s a thing, and we need to talk about it as normal as insulin, or heart medicine."