Elvis Presley’s Beloved Former Nurse Dies at 98

Marian J. Cocke, who served as Elvis Presley‘s in-home nurse for two years at the end of his life, has died. She was 98 years old.

Priscilla Presley shared a tribute to Cocke on social media, posting a photograph of herself and Cocke along with the late Lisa Marie Presley. “Marian you will be greatly missed,” Priscilla wrote in the caption of her post.

“Your spirit touched many people and especially Elvis,” she continued. “You were the person that he always counted on. Thank you for always taking care of him.”

Cocke first met Presley in January 1975, when she was a nursing supervisor at Memphis, Tenn.’s Baptist Memorial Hospital and Presley was admitted to her care. Around that time, Presley was battling a host of health issues including weight management and a growing addiction to prescription drugs, according to Biography.com.

Presley’s physician George Nichopoulus arranged for Presley to be transported to the hospital, where he remained for about three weeks.

Cocke recounted their first meeting, as well as the longstanding professional relationship that followed, in her 1979 book I Called Him Babe: Elvis Presley’s Nurse Remembers. She writes that after she and Presley grew close during his second hospital stay in 1975, Nichopoulus suggested she become his in-home nurse at Graceland. Her duties there included monitoring the singer’s blood pressure and keeping tabs on his medications.

According to People, Cocke never accepted payment for her services from Presley, though he did give her “a beautiful white Pontiac.” She left after two and a half years, when her own mother became terminally ill.

In a mid-2000s interview, Cocke said that the last time she saw Presley in person was “a few days before he died” in August 1977.

“He called me one morning at about two o’clock, and wanted me to come out and sit with him. He just couldn’t go to sleep,” she recounts, saying that she went and sat quietly at his bedside for “about four hours” before Presley said he felt like he could sleep and told her she could go home.

Read More: Lisa Marie Presley Recounts the Day Her Father Elvis Died

But he called her back as she was walking toward the door.

“He said, ‘Miss Cocke?’ And I turned around, looked at him, said, ‘What is it, honey?'” she continues. “And he said, ‘The doors of this house will always be open for you.’ And those were the last words he spoke to me face to face.”