Fountains of Wayne singer Adam Schlesinger enjoyed “such a sweet week” with girlfriend Alexis Morley before his death.
Schlesinger died on Apr. 1 from complications due to the coronavirus. He was 52.
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On Monday, Morley opened up about her final days with Schlesinger in an Instagram post.
The post featured a photo of the couple taking a stroll in Red Hook, New York, two weeks before Schlesinger’s death.
“This is the last photo taken of Adam and me, March 15,” Morley captioned the post. “We went on a gorgeous, 4 mile walk that day with our friend @davidwatts1978, after driving upstate from NYC the day before. It sounds out of character, but in the past year Adam had grown open to, and eventually enthusiastic about, taking long walks outdoors (we just weren’t allowed to call them ‘hikes’).”
“This one was ‘Poets’ Walk’ in Red Hook,” Morley continued. “We’d gone there before, mostly because we liked the name and had lots of jokes about the ‘poets’ we hoped to see (we envisioned old, cartoonishly-tweedy guys, ambling, hands clasped behind backs, gazing to the sky in search of ‘inspiration’).”
Morley then detailed how at 4 a.m. the following morning, the musician woke up with a fever that would not break. The couple’s roles then “reversed” as Morley tried to take care of her love.
“We spent such a sweet week together, our roles kind of reversed because usually Adam was the one to take care of me,” she explained. “I tried to keep him comfortable, nurse him back to health, as we waited for the fever to break. We were sure it would—just like any other crappy flu. He said, ‘I’m ok. I have my Alexis.’ But 7 days later things got worse and I brought him to the hospital.”
Morley wasn’t allowed to walk into the hospital with Schlesinger and drove home “terrified,” but felt optimistic while texting and joking with the “Stacy’s Mom” singer throughout the night.
“He kept telling me how much he loved me and thanked me for ‘saving [his] life’😪,” she wrote. “The next morning he was intubated. I never got to hear his voice again. After 10 days of me, our incredible families, and friends drawing on every resource possible trying to help, I got a 3am call from the hospital. He wasn’t going to make it.”
“I asked if there was any way I could see him (a cruelty of the pandemic is a strict ban on visitors),” she added. “They made special arrangements for me to be allowed into the covid unit: a low-lit, grim, heavy place; the medical workers and I obscured by layers of PPE. But Adam looked sweet, peaceful, beautiful. I’m so thankful that I got to spend that one final hour with him—and that I was able to connect Sadie & Claire and Bobbi & Steve through my phone’s facetime too. I like to think he could sense us there, but he was deeply unconscious.”
Sadie and Claire are the singer’s two daughters with his ex-wife, Katherine Michel, while Bobbi and Steve are his parents.
Following the goodbyes, Morley went home and received a call shortly afterward informing her that Schlesinger had died after she left.
“It had been a dark, overcast day, but at that moment the sun came out for just a few minutes and lit up the entire sky,” Morley shared. “I love you so, so much, Adam.”
Her post also included a photo of the sun beaming through trees -- possibly a snap of the moment she received the news.
On Wednesday, Schlesinger's bandmates reunited to pay tribute to their founding member, virtually performing alongside rocker Sharon Van Etten from their homes.
See more on Schlesinger's death below.
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