Luxembourg’s Prince Frederik Dead at 22 After Battling Rare Genetic Disease

The people of Luxembourg are in mourning.

The small European country’s Prince Frederik, the son of Grand Duke Henri‘s cousin Prince Robert and his wife Princess Julie, has died after a long battle with PolG mitochondrial disease, a rare genetic disorder. He was 22.

Robert announced March 7 that his son passed away in Paris March 1, one day after he called his parents, siblings Prince Alexander and Princess Charlotte, and other family members to his room to speak to him one last time.

“Frederik’s last question to me, prior to his other remarks was: ‘Papa, are you proud of me?'” the 56-year-old said in a statement on the website of the late prince’s PolG Foundation. “He had barely been able to speak for several days, so the clarity of these words was as surprising as the weight of the moment was profound.”

Robert said that while the “answer was very easy, and he had heard it oh so many times,” he understood his son “needed reassurance that he had contributed all that he possibly could in his short and beautiful existence and that he could now finally move on.”