After Scott Weiland, former lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, died on Dec. 3, his wife Mary Forsberg Weiland decided to write an emotional letter to his fans.

Written with the help of the couple’s two teenage children, the letter was published Monday in Rolling Stone. Asking fans not to “glorify this tragedy,” Mary details the years of drugs abuse, battles with illness, paranoia, fear and constant disappointment she and her children faced with Scott.

“The outpouring of condolences and prayers offered to our children, Noah and Lucy, has been overwhelming, appreciated and even comforting,” writes Mary in Rolling Stone. “But the truth is, like so many other kids, they lost their father years ago. What they truly lost on December 3rd was hope.”

Scott Weiland struggled with substance abuse issues for many years and was in and out of rehab. Despite his trouble with drugs (and the law), fans continued to support him.

“In reality, what you didn’t want to acknowledge was a paranoid man who couldn’t remember his own lyrics and who was only photographed with his children a handful of times in 15 years of fatherhood,” said Mary in Rolling Stone, explaining that her ex-husband was absent from his children’s lives in the years leading up to his death. But, for those parents, people or artists that have time to turn around there lives, Mary insists there is “hope.”

“Our hope for Scott has died, but there is still hope for others,” she wrote. “Let’s choose to make this the first time we don’t glorify this tragedy with talk of rock and roll and the demons that, by the way, don’t have to come with it. Skip the depressing T-shirt with 1967-2015 on it — use the money to take a kid to a ballgame or out for ice cream.”

To read the entire letter, head over to Rolling Stone here.

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