Suzanne Somers’ husband, Alan Hamel, knows his life will never be the same after her death and is recalling the final moments they spent together.
The “Three’s Company” star died Oct. 15, one day before she would’ve turned 77. Her daughter-in-law told The New York Times the cause of death was breast cancer.
The couple was together for 55 years and married for over four decades. On TODAY Oct. 17, Hamel detailed the final moments they shared, and that he knew the end was coming.
“I wouldn’t say I was surprised. She was heavy breathing at the very end and I gave her a pill to relax the breathing, but it didn’t work,” he said.
“And I was grateful that I was with her when she left us. And it was very peaceful and it was beautiful. And she was beautiful. And we had the whole family come and they’ve been here ever since. And we’ve been very upbeat about what’s going on. There hasn’t been a grim moment. Every time I feel it coming on, I leave the room so I can be alone. But that’s life, I don’t know what else to do.”
Hamel said they could sense her loss in the weeks before she died.
“She was doing OK. Not great, but she was doing OK,” he said. “And we had conversations. We faced reality like who knows what’s going to happen down the road.”
He told TODAY that he's coming to grips with losing her.
“My life is going to change,” he shared. "I don’t care one way or another, and we had talked about this day coming, and we thought it was going to be me because I’m 10 years older. If that happened she would be alone, which was a terrible conundrum, the idea of her being alone.”
Hamel also gushed about how great a person Somers was.
"She was an amazing, amazing woman," he said. "Aside from all her accomplishments, she was an amazing wife and an amazing mother, as well. She's the one who pulled our family together. I didn't do it. She did it. She really knew what she was doing. So I will miss her."
They also discussed maintaining her legacy and the “clean, organic products” she promoted. Hamel said Somers said she wanted to continue to provide them for people even after she died.
“I said, ‘Let’s not talk about after you’re gone,’” he said. “She said, ‘Well, the reality is I’ve been fighting this thing for a long time and who knows what’s going to happen down the road.’ She said, ‘Let’s just make sure that SuzanneSomers.com is still developing incredible products for the marketplace.’”