Adam Schlesinger's Girlfriend Shares Last Photo Taken Before His Death: 'I Love You So, So Much'

Benjamin VanHoose
Updated ·5 min read

Adam Schlesinger's girlfriend Alexis Morley is opening up about her last memories with the late Fountains of Wayne musician.

On Sunday, Morley shared the final photo she took with Schlesinger, which showed the pair going on a "gorgeous" walk together on March 15 in upstate New York. The beloved songwriter would soon test positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19); he died on April 1 at age 52.

In a lengthy, emotional caption on Instagram, Morley wrote that Schlesinger had "grown open to, and eventually enthusiastic about" taking walks together — as long as they didn't refer to them as "hikes," she joked. The grieving girlfriend noted that early the next morning, he woke with a fever.

"We spent such a sweet week together, our roles kind of reversed because usually Adam was the one to take care of me," wrote Morley. "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."

Not allowed to stay at the hospital with him, Morley said she drove home "terrified" but that they kept in touch by texting while "making cute jokes [and] feeling optimistic."

"He kept telling me how much he loved me and thanked me for 'saving [his] life,'" Morley recalled. "The next morning he was intubated. I never got to hear his voice again."

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View this post on Instagram

💔💔💔 This is the last photo taken of Adam and me, March 15. 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. 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”). That night he woke up at 4am with a fever. We spent such a sweet week together, our roles kind of reversed because usually Adam was the one to take care of me. 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. I wasn’t allowed to walk in with him. I drove home alone through a snowstorm terrified (the first time I’d driven a car in years), but we spent the night texting, making cute jokes, feeling optimistic. He kept telling me how much he loved me and thanked me for “saving [his] life”😪. 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). 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. (CONT in comment) #adamschlesinger @adam_schlesinger

A post shared by Alexis Morley ✨🕋👁🗝🐇 (@alexismorley) on Apr 26, 2020 at 3:07pm PDT

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Morley then describes the moment she got a call at 3 a.m. from the hospital, telling her that Schlesinger "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 wrote. "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."

Continued Morley: "But Adam looked sweet, peaceful, beautiful. I’m so thankful that I got to spend that one final hour with him ... I like to think he could sense us there, but he was deeply unconscious."

Not long after she arrived home after the visit, Morley got a call that her boyfriend had died. She shared a second photograph from that day, describing sunlight breaking through an otherwise gloomy day.

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"Shortly after I arrived back at the house, Jordan, a male nurse who’d been so wonderfully compassionate in the covid unit, called to tell me that Adam had just passed, peacefully," she wrote. "He was holding his hand as it happened. 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. That’s the second picture..."

She concluded: "I love you so, so much, Adam."

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