They Went for a 'Gorgeous' Hike. The Next Day, Singer Fell Ill

It was shocking to the music world when Adam Schlesinger, one of the founders of Fountains of Wayne, died from COVID-19 earlier this month. But how suddenly the coronavirus felled the 52-year-old is underscored in an emotional Instagram post put up by his girlfriend, Alexis Morley, USA Today notes. Morley explains that on March 15, she, Schlesinger, and a friend went on a "gorgeous" 4-mile walk in upstate New York, showing a pic of her and Schlesinger ambling up a trail. Then, in the wee hours of the next morning, Schlesinger awoke with a fever, Morley writes. "We spent such a sweet week together, our roles kind of reversed because usually Adam was the one to take care of me," she notes. "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."

A week after that, however, Schlesinger's condition worsened, so Morley brought him to the hospital, and he was intubated the next morning. "I never got to hear his voice again," she writes. After a 10-day battle, Morley got a call at 3am informing her he wouldn't survive, and she begged hospital staff to let her see him one more time. They let her into the COVID-19 unit "obscured by layers of PPE," where she got to see her "sweet, peaceful" boyfriend for "one final hour." After Morley returned home, she got a call informing her Schlesinger had died, a nurse holding his hand. That's when she said she took the second photo that appears in her Instagram post. "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," she writes. "I love you so, so much, Adam." Read more here. (More Adam Schlesinger stories.)