Riley Keough

So she didn't do that. And that was actually something I was like so to the day she died proud of her for. And I thought was really important because she'd always be like two years sober, three years sober. And I think she always felt like I wasn't proud of her or like I wasn't giving her enough praise for her sobriety. But really, I was just frightened. Like I was scared to say anything.

Like, yay, you know, you're whatever. And I feel like I should have. I think I withheld the excitement because I was nervous that she'd relapse. Of course you were.

Yeah. And so I think that the fact that my brother died and she never relapsed was actually so incredible. And before she died, coincidentally, she had had like a infection. She'd had a surgery and she had to take Oxy, I think.

And I was like, oh, God, like, here we go. This is going to be a whole thing. I didn't think she was going to like go full crazy, but I thought she was going to definitely drag it out. But I kind of was like, I'm not going to ask because I guess I learned my lesson. I'm just going to let her do what she's going to do. And this was probably in like November and she died in January.

And I knew she was taking them. Or maybe it was sort of December time. I knew she was taking them and whatever. She had to take them. Like I talked to the doctor. But when she died, my first thought was she's OD'd. And my housekeeper was like... I don't know what's happened. There's her pills here or something. I can't remember the exact conversation. And I was like, oh, she's mixed something.

She's OD'd on accident. Something's had a reaction. And she had told me a few weeks earlier, I'm taking it, but I'm being responsible. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to not get involved here. And when she died and the autopsy report came back, it said like therapeutic amounts of whatever was in her blood.

And I just felt so proud of her because she was just taking exactly what was prescribed for the time it was prescribed. And so I think it's really important to share that because I don't think she was going to relapse, you know, had she stayed alive. And I think that actually a part of her when my brother died made her want to stay sober because he would have wanted that.

Yeah. I think it did in a way. And that kind of can feel heartbreaking. But also there's a part of me that's like, who's to say that it's a precipice of something that's here on this planet? That's right. You know?

So I kind of choose to feel more hopeful about that, I guess, because I think that like something I've really haven't liked in my grief experience is the sort of feeling around death that it's like a failure.

which is so weird because we all die and it's like at all ages at any time it's just part of life and there's this feeling around it that's like oh no i'm so this horrible thing happened to you but but it's kind of ridiculous you know yeah who's to say that on the other side of it is not 20 million times better than this Exactly.

So I think that like the sort of view around death and my view on dying when touring this book and people are like, oh, I'm so sorry. Of course, it was tragic and like extremely painful and traumatized the shit out of me. But I also don't instinctually in my heart believe that the human beliefs around death and the fear are totally valid.

Yeah.

The sort of place she was right before she died was like she would go on hikes and was like, I'm going to start a grief podcast. And so she was actually trying to like live for my sisters and my brother in honor of him. And she was really trying, you know. Yeah. Though she was totally heartbroken. I think that

those things are happening, you know, and the book did come out and I think that it did have the effect that she wanted it to in terms of just reaching people and people relating to it on a human level. Cause I think a lot of her life, she spent not feeling like a human in a way.

Right. And then when you really think about like what life is about and what a successful life is, I think to me, it's ability to give and receive love. And I feel like she was exceptional at one of those things.

Right. Oh my gosh. Well, I think it's, I think that like the obvious things are like, well, the spiritual problem is trauma, not enough love, whatever. But I also saw someone who really didn't understand what they were doing here and on a more profound level, you know, didn't understand her purpose and desire to, for someone to say like, Hey, this is what life is.

Like, which is a funny thing that it's looked at as this like esoteric conversation, but it's like kind of nuts that were just plopped here with no context. And so I like to be confused feels like, Legit. Right. Seems like it should be like a baseline 101. Right.

This is what we're here to talk about. Yeah. So I think that there's just like... a lack of understanding and like purpose with her and wanting definitely love. Like love was a big one for her. I don't think she could receive love very well. Yeah. I don't know.

You know, I spent like my whole, my hours of my day that are, or when I'm going to bed and I should be sleeping, like wondering, why did this happen? And what does this mean? And what is addiction? Like, what is it? Trauma? Is it, is it genetic? I have no idea. I don't have any answers in that respect. I just saw somebody who had some kind of hole they wanted to fill.

Yes. She was very, had real abandonment stuff. She would very quickly drop friends if she felt that they were going to drop her first kind of a thing. But then also you reminded me like she was in pain, you know, and she didn't want to feel pain, like God forbid, you know, it's really difficult to live with that much pain, grief. for a long time.