David Bowie‘s son, Duncan Jones, has ended a period away from social media to share a letter to his father which was written by a palliative care specialist.
Jones, who directed the films Moon and Source Code, had said that he would be “offline for a while” after the news of Bowie’s death was announced last week (January 11). However, he returned on Sunday to retweet a post by cancer charity Marie Curie.
The tweet linked to to a letter written by palliative care consultant Dr Mark Taubert, who told of how Bowie’s death had helped one of his patients face up to the end of her life.
“Whilst realization of your death was sinking in during those grey, cold January days of 2016, many of us went on with our day jobs,” Taubert wrote. “At the beginning of that week I had a discussion with a hospital patient, facing the end of her life. We discussed your death and your music, and it got us talking about numerous weighty subjects, that are not always straightforward to discuss with someone facing their own demise. In fact, your story became a way for us to communicate very openly about death, something many doctors and nurses struggle to introduce as a topic of conversation.”
Taubert added that Bowie’s “gentle death at home” had helped both those working in palliative care and their patients.
A thank you letter to David Bowie from a palliative care doctor. https://t.co/ibFYRY8wc1 – thanks for sharing @DrMarkTaubert
— Marie Curie (@mariecurieuk) January 17, 2016
As reported, producer Tony Visconti has revealed Bowie was planning to record and release another album after ‘Blackstar’. It was previously suggested in a separate report that there is material leftover from the ‘Blackstar’ sessions which could see a future release.
David Bowie has been cremated in New York according to reports. It is believed he was privately cremated without any friends and family present, as per his wishes. He wanted “to go without any fuss”, a source told two UK newspapers.
He passed away on January 10 following an 18 month battle with cancer. Reports have since suggested that he “died from liver cancer” after “surviving six heart attacks”.
See more tributes to David Bowie here.