Lisa Marie Presley Memoir Recap/Discussion: Final Chapter
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Previous recaps: Chapters 1 & 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 (pt one) || Chapter 6 (pt two) || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 (pt one) || Chapter 8 (pt two)
Lisa Marie Presley’s memoir From Here to the Great Unknown was 85% done and spread across 16 tapes when she passed away in January 2023. The book consists of Lisa's recollections, daughter Riley Keough's assessments, memories and clarifications, as well as occasional input from Danny Keough, Lisa Marie’s first husband and best friend (and Riley's father).
General trigger warning. This is the end.
Chapter Nine: Meditation Garden
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• Lisa says her grief changes weekly and is all over the place. The grief was what was happening and what she was going through.
• The night before Tupelo was born, Riley, her husband, her parents and the surrogate got together for dinner at a Holiday Inn in the Mojave Desert. The next morning, Tupelo was born via c-section. Riley and her husband were going with the baby to have her apgar test and hadn't had time to text Lisa Marie. They ended up bumping into Lisa, who wasn't even allowed where they were, but she had snuck in and intuitively found them. She took one look at Tupelo and told the baby, “Ben-Ben brought me to you!”
• Lisa and Danny would do the night shifts together to help Riley and her husband. There were months of joy with the newborn and Lisa called Tupelo “our little light” and a little fawn. Lisa wouldn't let anyone else hold the baby that Thanksgiving.
• Riley planned a big Christmas in British Columbia because Lisa wanted a special holiday with snow. Lisa was really excited for it. Riley booked the hotel, flights, everything and the bill was huge. Lisa said “So what, you never know when it's your last Christmas together.”
• Lisa's renewed passport didn't arrive in time and not being able to go clicked something off in Lisa- Riley said the trip had represented a dreamland and Lisa became resigned to the fact that she would never find the joy she once held again.
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• Lisa's health deteriorated further in late 2022. She developed another infection in November- she was given opioids and Riley tried to trust her and she found out from her toxicology report that she had in fact taken only therapeutic amounts. Riley was proud of her mother.
• Lisa continued to complain about her stomach, of feeling nauseated. The twins were worried, asking if she would be okay. Riley told them yes but she didn't believe it.
• New Years was spent in Santa Ynez, a place the family always went to, which Riley found depressing but they were all together. Riley watched her mother build a relationship with her horse during horse rides, she was in tune with horses.
• On New Years Eve, they ended up in a bar. A band did a honky tonk version of Elvis’s Suspicious Minds and Lisa went up to congratulate them and they brushed Lisa off, which she found hilarious. After the twins went to bed, Lisa and Riley were joined by Danny and they smoked cigarettes. Lisa and Danny cooed about their granddaughter and Riley felt grateful for still having both of her parents.
• The last time Riley saw her mother was on Elvis’ birthday on January 8th, 2023. Lisa was quiet and in her own world. Riley tried to include her in conversation but Lisa was withdrawn. She told Riley she was going home. Riley says there was a sadness and resignation to Lisa Marie, and Riley was worried. As Riley and her husband walked Lisa to her car, Riley said Lisa seemed soft and empty, something had left her.
• While filming Under the Bridge in Vancouver, Lisa's texts to Riley were less responsive and Riley got more worried.
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• On the morning of January 12th, Lisa Marie texted Danny and asked for Tums because her stomach was hurting badly [note: Lisa and Danny had been living together with the twins since Benjamin passed and had moved into a new home Lisa was interested in purchasing for the four of them. According to reports, Danny was taking the twins to school that morning].
• Riley later received a call from her father, which made Riley's heart stop because she knew something bad had happened. By the time Danny came back with the Tums, Lisa had been found by the housekeeper on the floor of her bedroom and Danny told Riley they thought she had a heart attack and they were trying to resuscitate her in the ambulance [note: as Riley noted in the introduction, Danny started to do CPR on Lisa while the housekeeper called 911].
• As Riley raced to Los Angeles, she was receiving text updates from her husband and father, both who were in Los Angeles. Through the flight, her best friend told Riley people survive heart attacks and Riley responded that she didn't think her mother was going to live through it, she didn't want to. Riley notes Tupelo- who wasn't a screamer- had begun to cry and scream. She thinks Tupelo knew something terrible was happening.
• When Tupelo was in utero, the doctor told Riley and her husband that she was underweight. Lisa Marie told her to talk to Tupelo’s spirit and tell her to gain weight. When Riley went out to lunch with the surrogate, she touched her belly and silently told the baby to gain weight, and she did.
• Lisa kept being resuscitated and kept falling. Riley spoke to her mother's spirit in her head, telling her mother it was okay to go if she wanted to go or stay if she wanted to stay.
• Danny's texts stopped and Riley knew something bad had happened. Finally Danny texted Riley at 5:18pm telling her Lisa was in cardiac arrest again and at 5:19pm asked Riley to call him. She asked if her mother was dying at 5:20pm. Danny didn't respond. She asked if her mother was dead.
• After four minutes, Danny responded, “She passed on a few minutes ago, honey. Didn't want to tell you by text but I'm worried it's going to hit the papers. I love you so much. I'm really sorry to tell you like this. I don't want you to be blindsided when you get off the plane.”
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• Riley says: “My father was my mom’s biggest protector throughout her whole adult life. She had many friends that came and went, but he was there from when she was seventeen until the moment she died. He was the last person with her.”
[note: at her recent book tour panel, Riley confirmed Danny was the one in the hospital room with Lisa Marie when she finally passed away]
• Riley was still a half hour away and she tried to cry quietly so as to not disturb the other passengers.
“The world I’d taken off from in Canada that morning was not the same one I had landed in at LAX that night. I didn't recognize this strange new planet. It was already a place that for two and a half years had been so painfully empty of my brother, Ben Ben, and now it was empty of my mother, too. I wondered how many times a heart can break.
…’Here we are again,’ I thought. I know this. When my brother died, I was hit with the realization that he was nowhere to be found on earth. I could travel anywhere and never find him…he was gone.
…he could never be found. No matter how hard I looked. Now it was the same feeling with my mother.”
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• Riley says Lisa Marie was like a Greek myth, her power and strength frightened people and she could see into people's souls. Lisa truly unconditionally loved and she must have always been reincarnated royal every time. Riley and Danny would joke if God had ever asked Lisa to come back not as a royal, she would decline the offer. Lisa would be the only person to say no to God.
[OP Note: the memoir chooses not to talk about- Danny threatening Lockwood for custody of the twins at the hospital, Lockwood going to Lisa Marie’s funeral against Riley's wishes, and most notably, Priscilla challenging a 2016 amendment to Lisa's will that put Riley and Benjamin as trustees and removed Priscilla. The end results were: Lockwood got sole custody of his daughters while Riley and Danny moved to be close to the twins, they all live five minutes from each other; the family including Priscilla and Lockwood have publicly pushed a united family front; and Riley paid Priscilla off to go away, Riley is now sole trustee of her mother's estate until her sisters are of the age stated by Lisa]
• According to her autopsy report, Lisa Marie's cause of death was cardiac arrest from by a small bowel obstruction caused by the bariatric surgery she had undergone earlier.
• The night before the funeral service, close friends came to say goodbye at the chapel at Graceland. The next day, all of her friends, people who loved her, said goodbye. A traumatic and painful morning ended in a celebratory dance party for Lisa Marie. There was joy, and everyone felt Lisa was there.
• Riley reads the eulogy she had been unable to read at her mother's funeral that her husband had to read for her.
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• At night after the service, Lisa's coffin was carried to the Meditation Garden at Graceland by a golf cart, just as she had as a child that had given her her first taste of freedom. Lisa's family and friends followed the golf cart and walked Lisa Marie from the chapel to her final resting place. Lisa Marie was laid to rest next to her son, and across from her father.
• The audiobook ends with Lisa Marie saying her stories aren't like everyone else's, they're endless, they're not what most people have experienced. At the same time, she thinks people will be shocked she survived her life and she was still here and alive. Or people will come away with thinking she's so strong, which would drive her crazy. She says being strong does nothing for her, she doesn't know what strength matters to her. She thinks it will be more interesting and fulfilling for her if her stories and experiences help people.
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Thank you for reading these recaps!
Source: me and my handy dandy book and audible account, pics one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen