Carly Simon has shared her heartache at the death of her elder sisters, Lucy and Joanna, who both died from cancer just one day apart from each other.
Former opera singer Joanna Simon died of thyroid cancer on Wednesday at the age of 85, while Broadway composer Lucy Simon died of metastatic breast cancer on Thursday at the age of 82.
77-year-old Carly said the losses will be "long and haunting" as she paid tribute to her "incredible" and "trailblazing" sisters.
"I am filled with sorrow to speak about the passing of Joanna and Lucy Simon. Their loss will be long and haunting.
"As sad as this day is, it’s impossible to mourn them without celebrating their incredible lives that they lived," she said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly.
Carly added: "We were three sisters who not only took turns blazing trails and marking courses for one another, we were each other’s secret shares. The co-keepers of each other’s memories.
"I have no words to explain the feeling of suddenly being the only remaining direct offspring of Richard and Andrea Simon."
Joanna and Lucy "touched everyone they knew and those of us they've left behind will be lucky and honoured to carry their memories forward," Carly concluded.
Carly's younger brother Peter also passed away from lung cancer at the age of 71 in 2018.
Born to publisher Richard Simon and wife Andrea, the Simon sisters and their younger brother Peter all pursued music careers with high acclaim.
The sisters used to perform in folk group The Simon Sisters, in the early 1960s.
"We would go to cocktail parties and bring our guitar and sing," Lucy told The New York Times in 2015. "And people loved it."
Eventually, she added, they said to each other: "Let’s see if we can pay our way by singing."
Lucy went on to have a successful career on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony award for her work on the musical The Secret Garden, which premiered in 1991.
Joanna began her career as an opera singer, later becoming a journalist. She died one day before her 86th birthday.
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