Lou Reed’s widow Laurie Anderson spoke publicly about her husband’s death for the first time in a local newspaper obituary on Thursday.

Anderson wrote an obituary for Long Island, New York’s East Hampton Star about Reed’s final days before he died of liver disease on 27 October, aged 71.

"Lou was a tai chi master and spent his last days here being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature,” Anderson said. “He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air.”

Reed died in the Springs, New York, home he shared with Anderson. Funeral plans have not been announced.

To our neighbors: What a beautiful fall! Everything shimmering and golden and all that incredible soft light. Water surrounding us. Lou and I have spent a lot of time here in the past few years, and even though we’re city people this is our spiritual home. Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to Springs. And we made it! Lou was a tai chi master and spent his last days here being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature. He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air. Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us. — Laurie Anderson his loving wife and eternal friend

John Cale, Reed's longtime friend and a founding member of the Velvet Underground, said on Sunday: "The world has lost a fine songwriter and poet … I've lost my school-yard buddy."

Tributes to the Velvet Underground co-founder poured in following his death, with musicians including Neil Young, Elvis Costello and Arctic Monkeys performing his songs at concerts this week.