In one letter obtained by Rolling Stone, Perry’s mother, Suzanne, and stepfather, Keith Morrison, reflect on the emotional toll of their son’s long struggle with addiction. “How do you measure grief? Can you possibly provide any rational accounting? The bottom falling out? Yes, that,” they wrote. They described years of trying to support Perry through relapses and recovery, saying his life was often “held aloft sometimes with duct tape and bailing wire.” Referring to the individuals who supplied him drugs, they added, “And then those greedy jackals come out of the dark, and all the effort is for naught; it all crashes down.”