DMX has been mourned by many since his death last month, but none have grieved the loss more than his family.

The rapper’s ex-wife Tashera Simmons opens up about his death, legacy and final interview on the latest episode of the PEOPLE Every Day podcast with host Janine Rubenstein.

“I am torn. Our children are suffering and trying to get to over that ‘not enough time with their dad’ thing; it’s a tough time,” she says. “At the same time … I used to think that this was insensitive to say, but I do believe he is in a better place, just because of the words he left me with. He was never afraid of passing on. And I used to be aggravated with that, but now I understand.”

DMX (born Earl Simmons) died April 9 at at White Plains Hospital in New York, one week after suffering a heart attack. He was 50. The three-time Grammy Award nominee’s final interview is airing in two parts on TV One’s Uncensored, the first of which aired Sunday.

“I didn’t know that it was filmed,” Tashera, 50, says. “When they called me, I didn’t realize that this was the last interview that he’d done. And the things that he talked about in it were so powerful to them, stories that he spoke about of myself and him that I didn’t even remember, really, until… They literally had to replay it.”

Tashera and DMX were married from 1999 to 2014, and they shared sons Xavier, 28, Tacoma, 21, Sean, 18, and daughter Praise, 16. The couple met at 11 years old, when she witnessed him steal a woman’s purse with the help of his dog. “Good girl loved bad boy,” she says.

“The way they jogged past me and caught my vision, our eyes … and I was just like, ‘My hero,'” Tashera recounts. “I’m trying to find the words to explain what I’m trying to say. But it just felt right in a crazy moment. It felt right.”