On what would have been her mother’s 63rd birthday, Billie Lourd is paying thoughtful tribute. Carrie Fisher died in December 2016, but she’s still with her daughter every day, as evidenced by the video Lourd posted on Instagram. In it, the 27-year-old actress is accompanied by two guitar players for a cover of “American Girl” by Tom Petty, one of Fisher’s favorite songs. The one-minute snippet showcases Lourd's lesser-known singing talent, and the full version on IGTV will give your heartstrings a real big yank.
"Today would have been my Momby’s 63rd birthday. Not that I’m some kind of grief expert by any means, but on milestones (or whatever you want to call them) like this, I like to celebrate her by doing things that she loved to do," Lourd captioned the video. "So here’s a little video of me singing one of her favorite songs ("American Girl" by Tom petty) in one of her favorite places (her bathtub, of course). I’ll probably have a pint of Vanilla Haggen Dazs and a Coca-Cola for dinner."
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Carrie Fisher died of sudden cardiac arrest just a day before mother Debbie Reynolds died of a stroke. In the wake of these two massive losses, Lourd released a statement about her mother and grandmother on Instagram.
"Receiving all of your prayers and kind words over the past week has given me strength during a time I thought strength could not exist," she wrote. "There are no words to express how much I will miss my Abadaba and my one and only Momby. Your love and support means the world to me."
"There's no way to really explain it; it's so hard to talk about," she said later that year in an interview with Ellen Degeneres. "I don't know, if I say that I'm doing good, I'm too happy. And if I say that I'm not doing good, then I'm a mess. So it's really hard to know what to say about it, because it is just so surreal and impossible to deal with."
But now, almost three years later, Tom Petty's lyrics say it best:
"And for one desperate moment there/He crept back in her memory/God it's so painful/Something that's so close/And still so far out of reach."