Nearly four weeks after Ric Ocasek passed away due to heart disease, his ex-wife, Paulina Porizkova, remembered The Cars’ frontman as someone who could ‘make you feel like the most special person in the world.’
The music world is still recovering from the loss of Ric Ocasek. The lead singer of The Cars and celebrated producer died on Sept. 15 at age 75, and the hole in Paulina Porizkova’s heart has yet to heal. The 54-year-old model was married to Ric for nearly twenty years before they separated, and though their marriage ended, the love between Ric and Paulina never ended. “Ric and I have been separated for nearly three years now. But we still lived together and still filled the family car,” she wrote on Instagram on Oct. 10.
“Everyone who knew Ric knew that he could be aloof. And not particularly social. But when he decided to turn his focus on you, it was as if the sun came out. His smile and his gaze warmed you and made you feel like the most special person in the world. I had that gaze and smile on me for most of my life. For a long long time, no one could make me feels as loved as Ric. He was my sun,” she added.
“With this, I don’t mean my sunshine,” she continued. “No, Ric could be pretty gloomy. In fact, when we first met, he reveled in his nickname ‘the Master of Doom.’ But in my universe, it was where he rose and where he set that was the point to which I oriented myself. Like a plant, I tilted my head to catch his rays. Our separation didn’t alter this one bit. He was rising and setting and I planned my life around it as one does a day: depending on the position of the sun in the sky: you’ll have breakfast or go to work or dinner with your friends. His death is the end of my world as I knew it. #ricocasek #grief #goodbye”
Paulina’s message comes nearly a month after she broke her silence about her broken heart. She first thanked all the fans that shared in her grief by sharing a picture of the flowers mourners left outside the NYC townhouse she and Ric shared. Later, after she found her words, Paulina said, “Ric was at home recuperating very well after [heart] surgery. Our two sons, Jonathan and Oliver, and I were making sure he was comfortable, ordering food, and watching TV together. I found him still asleep when bringing his Sunday morning coffee. I touched his cheek to rouse him. It was then I realized that during the night he had peacefully passed on.”
After his death, New York City medical examiners office ruled that Ric died due to “hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease [atherosclerosis],” with emphysema playing a contributing role. Atherosclerosis is a build-up of plaque inside arteries, while emphysema is a lung condition in which the air sacs are damaged.