I take back what I said about remaining quiet: Laurie Anderson can use as many words as she wants honoring her late husband, Lou Reed. (Still feels weird to write.) Sweetly, however, she chose very few in an obituary published in the East Hampton Star, a small-town Long Island, New York, newspaper. Here it is, in its entirety.

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 (Via)

Simple and sweet, just like Lou. Except not at all. R.I.P.