Sidney Poitier Died of Heart Failure and Suffered from Alzheimer's Dementia, Death Certificate Reveals
In an emotionalstatementposted to Instagram last week, one of his daughters, Sydney, paid tribute to her late dad.
"There are no words for this. No real way to prepare for this. No prose beautiful enough, no speech eloquent enough to capture the essence of my dad," she wrote, adding that his accomplishments "quite literally changed the landscape for everyone who came after him."
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"We know how graceful and wise he was. How powerful his strength of character and moral fortitude. But what I really want people to know is how GOOD he was," she continued.
"I know people know he was good, but I don't think they know the depth of his goodness. That it permeated every cell of his being. The sort of goodness that prevented him from killing even the tiniest of bugs," Sydney wrote.
"He knew on a cellular level that if he hurt anyone or anything, he hurt everyone and everything," she continued, explaining that her dad "treated anyone who crossed his path as his equal and offered them his full presence."

Sydney wrote that she's not only grieving because she lost her dad, but also because "the world lost so much goodness," comparing theLilies of the Fieldactor to a lighthouse: "Warm and bright. No matter the storms whipping around him, he stood unwavering shining his light."
"We thought we were taking care of him. I see now that the truth is he was still taking care of us," she added, describing his last few years. "He was reminding us, particularly in these uncertain times, of the power of GOODNESS. That even when the body is fading and things seem to be falling apart around us, the goodness remains."
Sydney went on to write that she would miss the little things, like laying her head on his shoulder, watching her daughter "take a running leap onto his bed and wrap her arms around him" and hearing him "fill the house with his healing laughter."
"But then I remember that even though his physical body is gone now, his goodness lives on," she wrote, noting that her father "lives on in his wife, his children, his grandchildren, in his movies and books, in every warm embrace he offered an adoring fan, every piece of advice he gave to those he mentored, every tiny bug he gently placed outside."
"I will miss you more than words can express Dad. I will feel you in the warmth of the sun on my back, I will hear you in the wind in the trees and I will look for you among the stars where you will surely be," she concluded. "I love you."