Suzanne Somers’ son, Bruce Somers Jr., is paying tribute to his late mother.
“She soared higher than most can dream. She protected those who didn’t have a voice. She asked the questions most didn’t know to ask. She shared her challenges and brought light to solutions,” Bruce, 57, began a lengthy Instagram post on Monday, October 16. “To so many she was a brave warrior who articulated their fears. She wasn’t fearless, but she faced them so we could learn. She was a friend, a wife, a sister, a daughter, an entertainer, an icon, and a legend. But to me, she was just Mom. I had the privilege as the only person who could call her that.”
Bruce — whom Somers shared with her first husband, Bruce Somers Sr. — said it was him and his mom “against the world” before she “took the world by storm” with her starring roles on shows such as Three’s Company and Step by Step.
“It’s always too soon, no matter how prepared we may be,” he wrote. “But she will live through me as she taught me to be kind, to be present, to love and be loved, to care, to express, and to always speak from the heart … because THAT is the voice of God.”
Although Suzanne left him with “all the tools” that he needs in life, Bruce Jr. said he will “still need your guiding spirit around me.” He continued: “I feel you and know you are there. But I will miss your sweet hand and caring eyes that would look deep into my soul for verification that everything was okay. Thank you for being the best mother any son could ever dream of. I miss you already. Call me greedy, but 57 years wasn’t enough. And yet, I received more love than I could ever imagine. I love you so dearly.”
He concluded his heartfelt message by acknowledging that the actress passed away one day shy of her 77th birthday. “Please gorge on all the birthday cake you want while you make all the other angels sing, dance, laugh and cry,” he stated. “Today, Heaven is lucky. 🥰🥲😇❤️🙏🍀.”
Us Weekly confirmed on Sunday, October 15, that Somers died following a two-decades long battle with breast cancer. “Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband, Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family,” Suzanne’s longtime publicist, R. Couri Hay, said in a statement to Us.
Suzanne is also survived by her husband, Alan Hamel, and her three stepchildren, whom Hamel, 87, shares with his ex-wife, Marilyn Shapiro.
Alan, for his part, penned an emotional letter to his spouse one day before her death. “Love I use it every day, sometimes several times a day. I use it at the end of emails to my loving family. I even use it in emails to close friends. I use it when I’m leaving the house,” he declared in the letter, shared with Us by Hay. “There’s love, then love you and I love you!! Therein lies some of the different ways we use love. Sometimes I feel obliged to use love, responding to someone who signed love in their email, when I’m uncomfortable using love but I use it anyway.”
Going on to describe different meanings of the word love, Alan wrapped his letter by stating there are “no words” to describe the love he has for Suzanne. “Even the green shaded scholars of the Oxford University Press have spent 50 years and still have failed to come up with that one word,” he wrote. “So I will call it ‘us,’ uniquely, magically, indescribably wonderful ‘us.’”
