Martin Short lost his beautiful wife of 30 years, Nancy Dolman, to ovarian cancer nine years ago, but the comedian says he still communicates with her on the daily. 

“It’s tough,” he told AARP magazine, noting that he tries to maintain a positive outlook. “I still communicate with her all the time. It’s ‘Hey, Nan,’ you know?” He added that he tries to think about how she would react to decisions he makes, “especially” when it comes to their three children: Katherine, 35, Oliver, 32, and Henry, 29.

“I believe that when people die, they zoom into the people that love them,” he said. “This idea that it just ends, and don’t speak of them — that’s wrong. That’s based on denial that we’re all going to die. So to me, she’s still here.”

Always the optimist, he added that losing her “emboldened me to take risks. With real tragedy, you become a little more daring. It’s the yin to the yang: the positive part of life’s dark side.”

This is why we love Martin Short. Read the rest of the interview HERE.