This is absolutely devastating. Tanya Callau Thicke opened up on Oct. 26 about how she felt in the months following her husband Alan Thicke’s unexpected death in December 2016, and things got really dark. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but at one point I didn’t want to live — I really didn’t,” Tanya explained in an emotional interview with Access Hollywood. “If I didn’t have my family and my friends to listen to me and to hold my hand and to give me the love, the nurturing that I needed, I wouldn’t be standing here in front of you right now.”

Tanya married Alan in 2005, and the day he died felt like any other: full of love and humor. “We spoke that morning. He woke up that morning and kissed my leg. He used to kiss whatever body part was sticking out of the sheets,” she remembered, laughing. “I got a phone call from him from the hockey rink — he’s there dressing up, getting ready to play hockey — and he’s like, ‘Honey, I’ll be home between six and seven. How about some chicken tonight with extra gravy and lots of TV and a little sex?’ I was like, ‘Deal! I’ll see you at six.’”

Unfortunately, she never got to see him again. “I started preparing to go to the market and then I get the phone call that something’s wrong with Alan, that I had to drive down to L.A.,” she continued. At the time, Tanya was at their Carpinteria Ranch, about two hours away. She said she “knew something was really, really wrong,” she second she got to the hockey rink where Alan collapsed.

“There was a spiritual worker there — a spiritual guidance person with a Bible,” she explained. “When I saw her standing there, my heart sank and I remember dropping my water bottle and my heart sank to my stomach. The doctors, they were explaining what happened to him and I’m listening and he said, ‘I’m sorry to tell you Mrs. Thicke, but your husband has expired.’ And I was like, ‘What?!’”

alan thicke, getty

Alan had been preparing for a hockey match with his son when he suddenly collapsed with a ruptured aorta at the age of 69. The whole family was shocked because there were no warning signs, and he was very active for someone his age. We’re just so glad that Tanya got the support she needed after her tragic loss.