Angus Cloud’s mother is remembering her late son.
via: People
Cloud’s mom Lisa opens her son’s bedroom door at her Oakland, California, home. The walls are covered with his riotous graffiti — an explosion of colorful shapes and doodles Angus began drawing in the third grade, followed by spray-painting in middle school. “He was so beautiful and creative,” she says, breaking the stillness. “He loved his home and he loved this little, tiny room.” Lisa points to a wooden desk, splattered with paint reminiscent of Jackson Pollock. She pauses and shakes her head, her voice growing mournful: “This is where my boy passed away.”
On July 31 Conor Angus Cloud Hickey — “Conor” to his family and childhood friends — suddenly died at 25 years old. That harrowing morning Lisa had found her son slumped over his desk. He often fell asleep in his chair while creating art. But as she approached him to say good morning, she realized something was wrong. “I started shaking him and screaming. I pushed him hard, and he fell on the floor. I tried to resuscitate him — mouth to mouth — and I was compressing him,” she says, sobbing. “I was screaming for my neighbor because I didn’t want to leave him and call 911, and I just kept at it until they took him away.” She wipes away a tear. “I miss him so much. He was the love of my life.”
On Thursday, nearly two months after Angus’ death, the Alameda County Coroner confirmed to PEOPLE he suffered acute intoxication from an accidental overdose of drugs. Fentanyl, benzodiazepines — depressant drugs often used to treat conditions such as anxiety disorders, insomnia and seizures — and cocaine and methamphetamine were found in his system.
“It was predominantly the central nervous system depressants. It started to slow his heart and slow his breathing,” says Lisa, her son’s jacquard Gucci shawl draped around her shoulders back in the living room. “He got tired from lack of oxygen. Everything just slowed down, and eventually his heart stopped and he went to sleep. But he didn’t kill himself.” In her grief she’s been buoyed by the outpouring of love from her son’s fans. “He went out at his total power, his total beauty, his total influence, and the reaction that everyone has had is very moving to me. You know, he’s not just an actor who overdosed. He was a beautiful soul, and that’s why people miss him so much.”
In the months leading up to his death, Angus had been grieving the loss of his father, Conor Hickey, who died on May 18 at 65 just three months after receiving a mesothelioma cancer diagnosis. A week before his fatal overdose, Angus spread his father’s ashes in Ireland with his family, including his twin sisters Molly and Fiona. “My son and his twin sisters were deeply grieving about their dad,” Lisa shares. “They were all devastated.”
But the day before Angus died he was in decent spirits, Lisa remembers. With his uncle Kevin Cloud’s help, he moved a disintegrated loveseat out of his bedroom to the front porch and swapped it for a bookcase from the basement. He also paid tribute to his late grandfather, Dr. Preston Cloud, a renowned scientist, placing his ashes on the mantle with a shell in the shape of a human brain on top. “I was the one of the last people to see him alive,” Kevin says. “We spent about four hours of his last afternoon together. It was an easy and happy time. He seemed supremely fit and healthy. The last thing I said to him was, ‘God, you are beautiful.'”
Later Angus and his friend Daniel Aguilera, who had also lost his father in recent years, spent two hours painting a cardboard canvas and spray-painting a yellow skateboard over the jacuzzi cover in the backyard, which left a permanent stain. Angus hugged Lisa when she went to bed that night. “I love you, mama. You’re the best,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Then Aguilera and Angus headed into the city. Exactly six years ago their close friend had died from a fentanyl overdose, and they wanted to honor him by spray painting a memorial. “It was so f—ing perfect,” says Aguilera, wiping away tears as he pulls up to the street where Angus tagged the side of a building. “Conor really wanted to honor him that night. It meant a lot to him. I got to spend the last night of his life with him creating artwork.”
When they finished around 4 a.m. Angus and Aguilera returned to Lisa’s house. “He wasn’t messed up or anything when I was with him,” says Aguilera, who has been clean from hard drugs for several years. He starts to cry as he acknowledges the guilt he feels about leaving Angus, who he believes began using after he went home. “I lost two of my best friends basically on the same day from fentanyl. I feel cursed,” he says. “I should have stayed with Conor. I don’t know how to live with myself. But I am blessed I had them both in my life.”
