The actor shared how the loss deepened his emotional understanding and capacity to experience both pain and joy
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- Jason Ritter reflected on finding joy in small moments, like sunsets, after his father John Ritter’s death in 2003
- He shared how the loss deepened his emotional understanding and capacity to experience both pain and joy
- Jason, 23 at the time of the loss, said it was difficult to accept his time with his father had ended
Jason Ritter is opening up about the signs of his dad, John Ritter, 23 years after his death.
John died in September 2003 at the age of 54, in the middle of filming season 2 of 8 Simple Rules.
In a recent appearance on Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb, Jason, 46, recalled what he went through the weeks and months after his dad’s death. “It felt like the world was upside down,” he said. But still, he saw glimmers of joy during this time.
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“The first beautiful thing that I remember is that around that period of time I have never seen more beautiful sunsets in my life,” he continued. “It was just this strange thing where maybe I wasn’t looking for them. Whatever it was, the sunsets were so beautiful that it made me immediately just believe with no proof.”
The Matlock actor added, “It doesn’t actually make sense if you like try to logically [think about it] … but in reality, it felt like when someone passes, they get to have a paintbrush for like a couple months and paint a couple sunsets or something like that.”
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Jason added that the sunsets “felt so personal.”
“I know that everybody could see these sunsets and I know that people pass away all the time, but I think it was it was like one of the first things where I felt like — when you are carved out in that way, when something happens, it’s so painful that the well of your understanding of life is kind of forced to go deeper like that, your capacity for all emotions grows as well,” the Lanterns star said. “And so you can experience joy.”
Jason also appeared on a recent episode of Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast with Ted Danson, where the two talked about how Jason has dealt with the death of his father.
“I was 23. And I was the oldest, so everyone else got even less time,” he said of how old he was at the time. John also had sons Tyler and Noah as well as daughter Carly.
“I had to work really hard to understand that that was the whole story, that that was the whole book of my time on this earth with him,” Jason continued. “And you know, initially it just felt like, ‘No, there’s more chapters there. Someone ripped out the back, but I’ll find that back somehow.’ ”
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