Read Laurie Anderson’s Letter About Husband Lou Reed’s Final Days
Published at
Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images(NEW YORK) – From the person that possibly knew him best, Lou Reed’s wife Laurie Anderson wrote an obituary for the singer/songwriter who died of liver disease earlier this week at age 71. It ran Thursday in the East Hampton Star.
Reed had a liver transplant in April and when doctors found out recently that they could no longer treat his end-stage liver disease, they sent him home. Anderson, 66, talks about their final days together back home in Long Island.
“Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to Springs,” she said. “And we made it!”
Reed first emerged as a force in the world of music as the lead singer for the Velvet Underground. The band’s debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, was released in 1967 and in 2003 Rolling Stone magazine called it the 13th greatest album of all time. In 1996 the band was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
Anderson added some light-hearted details on what Reed was doing before he died.
“[He] spent his last days here being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature,” she said. ”He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air.”
Read The Full Letter Below
To our neighbors:
What a beautiful fall! Everything shimmering and golden and all that incredible soft light. Water surrounding us.
Lou and I have spent a lot of time here in the past few years, and even though we’re city people this is our spiritual home.
Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to Springs. And we made it!
Lou was a tai chi master and spent his last days here being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature. He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air.
Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.
— Laurie Anderson
his loving wife and eternal friend
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio