Trigger warning: This article mentions drug abuse.
Billie Lourd woke up sad on what would have been her mother Carrie Fisher’s 68th birthday. On October 21, the Ticket to Paradise actress took to Instagram to celebrate her late mother’s birthday and wrote an emotional tribute to her memory. The post showed an old photo of Fischer lighting the candles on her birthday cake, with a little Lourdes smiling and watching next to her.
“My mother would have been 68 years old today. Dead birthdays are weird, to say the least,” she wrote in her caption. She further added, “Every year on my mother’s birthday, I try to celebrate her as much as possible, but today I really wanted to celebrate my birthday with her.”
Lord said that every year on Fischer’s birthday, grief affects her differently. One year, it made her feel hot or angry, and some years, she felt numb. However, this year she felt an emptiness and wished her mother was with her. “When I woke up today I felt very sad. I didn’t want to celebrate, I just wanted my mom,” she wrote.
When the grief of losing her mother “immortalized” her, she Googled the average age of death of women in the US, according to the CDC, and the average answer was 80.2 years. The actress wrote in her caption, “My mother died when she was 60. 60 is too young an age to die.”
According to the Star Wars actress’ toxicology report, her death was caused by sleep apnea, atherosclerotic heart disease and “drug use.” Despite Lourdes’ best efforts, she could not help her mother overcome her addiction problem. However, when she was alive, she always poured out her heart about the ups and downs of the struggle, “in the hopes that it would help her overcome her addiction,” said Lourd.
“As an addict, being open about the struggle is the only way out. And the same applies to those of us who were affected by that conflict,” he wrote. He ended his post by sending love to all those who have lost a loved one due to drug addiction. “You are not alone,” she wrote with a red heart emoji.
