Lisa Marie Presley‘s final resting place is being prepared at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn. for her upcoming public memorial on Sunday, Jan. 22. In pictures and a video obtained by the Daily Mail that can be viewed here, workers can be seen on their hand and knees digging a grave and preparing for the arrival of the late daughter of rock legend Elvis Presley, who will be buried next to her late son, Benjamin Keough. Other footage shows dozens of orange construction cones scattered around the area and flowers left by fans at Elvis’ former home’s front gate.
Lisa’s grave is located in a spot next to Graceland’s backyard fountain and almost directly across from where her father is buried. Several other members of the Presley family are buried at Graceland, including Elvis’ father, Vernon, mother, Gladys, and his grandmother, Minnie Mae. Elvis’ grave can be seen below. There is also a memorial stone for Elvis’ twin brother, who died at birth in 1935, at the family graveyard.
As fans know, Lisa died unexpectedly at the age of 54 on Thursday, Jan. 12 after suffering cardiac arrest. This came just days after she got emotional watching Austin Butler, 31, accept his first-ever Golden Globe for portraying Elvis Presley in 2022’s biopic, Elvis, at the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards. She also made headlines that night for crashing Austin’s red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight and raving about Austin’s performance. “I really didn’t know what to do with myself after I saw [the movie],” she recalled. “I had to take, like, five days to process it because it was so incredible and so spot on and just so authentic that, yeah, I can’t even describe what it meant.”
Prior to that, however, she was reportedly in great spirits at the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood, Calif. with her daughter, Riley Keough, 33, Austin, and the director of Elvis, Baz Luhrmann, to celebrate what would have been Elvis’ 88th birthday. “They were really adorable together. They were side by side the entire night,” Bobby Green, the owner of the cafe, told PEOPLE on Jan. 14. “And of course, I think they had things to do that night. They had to sit in the Elvis booth together, and they had to get pictures, but they seemed to really genuinely enjoy it…. They seemed very happy.”
Although it is known she suffered from cardiac arrest, Lisa’s sudden cause of death has yet to be revealed. All that is known as of this writing is that her ex-husband, Danny Keough, performed CPR on her at their Hollywood home as he awaited the paramedics to arrive. She was then placed into an induced coma and was on life support before she passed away later that evening at the hospital. Her family has a long history of heart failure, including her father, who died of a heart attack related to his abuse of a myriad of drugs. He died at the age of 42 in 1977. His mother also died young at the age of 44 due to heart failure.
Lisa was very well aware that her childhood home would be her final resting place and even sang about her fate in her 2003 song called “Light’s Out.” She sang, “Someone turned the lights out there in Memphis, that’s where my family’s buried and gone. … Last time I was there, I noticed a space left next to them there in Memphis in the damn back lawn.”
She also spoke about it when discussing her song in a 2003 interview with Playboy. “The back lawn of Graceland is a graveyard, basically. How many people have a family grave in the backyard?” she questioned. “How many people are reminded of their fate, their mortality, every [expletive] day? All the graves are lined up and there’s a spot there, waiting for me, right next to my grandmother.”
Lisa left behind three living children when she passed: twin daughters Harper and Finley, who she shares with her ex-husband Michael Lockwood, and daughter Riley, who she shares with Danny.