Susan Lucci’s husband of 52 years, Helmut Huber, died in 2022 — and the loss still resonates deeply.
“The grief just comes over you — sometimes from a trigger, sometimes because it just does,” the All My Children star, 79, told Yahoo in an interview published on Thursday, February 5.
“I just say: Allow yourself to feel whatever it is, and then move forward. Everyone is different. There’s no time limit or restriction, and one person’s way of dealing with things doesn’t have to be yours,” added the actress, who writes in her new book, La Lucci, that in the wake of Huber’s death following a stroke, she felt like “half a person.”
“My purpose in writing the book is to let people who are grieving read it and fill in the blanks with their own details,” she explained. “Maybe there’s something that helps them feel less alone. Maybe there’s comfort in hearing somebody else is going through it or has gone through it.”
Lucci turned to her faith to cope, she told the outlet. “I would not be here if it weren’t for my faith. I would not have been able to resume my life and go forward,” the Devious Maids alum revealed. “It’s what I really leaned on for strength and guidance.”
“I think God has a divine plan, and I wish this wasn’t it,” she acknowledged. “But on the other hand, I had my husband for a long time. If you’re in love with someone, it’s never enough time. It’s never a good time to lose them. Everybody’s loss of a loved one is terrible. You just learn to deal with it if you want to keep on living — and I do.”
“I hope that from reading about my journey — how devastated I was, but how I was able to get up off the floor and put one foot in front of the other — they see they can do that in their own way too,” the Emmy winner added.
“I begin and end each day with gratitude. I have had so many blessings in my life, and I’m grateful for them,” Lucci continued. “I recognize that this life is a tremendous gift from God. I just want to be the best I can be and do the best I can with this gift. I’m never going to thumb my nose at it.”