Heather Radke

His experience of being loved and being close to people came from these extended family relations.

There were three families that he would sort of cycle through, but he never had his own intimate one-on-one relationship.

There were very few opportunities for him just to be seen and appreciated for just being alive, not being an instrument.

When he got sick, he'd come stay with us.

Towards the end of his life, he actually stayed in our spare bedroom for several weeks before I found an appropriate place for him when he was really on the way out.

And he wanted to be back home, so we got him back home, got him on hospice.

The last few days of his life, the thing that we worked on together was he let me know that he was afraid.

He'd given a lot of thought to the actual dying experience, and he was deathly afraid of dying by asphyxiation.

when people take their last breaths, especially if they're conscious, it can be very hard to actually let go and not take another breath.

He was terrified.

So we would practice.

We'd take like five or ten minutes of just him practicing how to let there be longer and longer periods before he would take an inhale.

And to have the sort of

to be, in his words, to stay in charge of his own reactions so fear didn't take over.

We all knew it was getting close to the time.

He wanted to go out finally.

Everybody seeing and holding and blessing him naked.

And so the morning he died, I was right there holding his hands, holding one hand, his friend, doctor, also friend of mine, holding the other hand.

And as he took his last breath, I, you know, reached down into his ear and said, you can do it.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.