Kimberly Van Der Beek, wife of the late actor James Van Der Beek, has shared a poignant update three months after his death from bowel cancer, revealing that "reality is settling in" as she navigates her grief.
Writing on Instagram to her 544,000 followers on Tuesday, Mrs Van Der Beek described the "outpouring of support" as "tremendous."
Sharing photographs of her husband with their children, she wrote: "Yesterday was three months since we lost @vanderjames. To say I’m heartbroken is a severe understatement. Words just don’t capture what grief is.
The comforts of shock have worn off. The reality is settling in… and I miss him. We all miss him. Yet, there is a different kind of magic in the air. I feel him. I know him more deeply. My conscious connection to God has deepened. The veils of the universe have thinned. And I trust that this is the path me and my family have always been intended to walk."
The couple shared six children: daughters Olivia, Annabel, Emilia and Gwendolyn, and sons Joshua and Jeremiah.
She added: "The outpouring of support has been tremendous. It’s held our family in the most beautiful of ways. You all went absolutely above and beyond anything I could have ever expected in supporting us and honoring James. I am deeply grateful. There is so much more to share here. And in time – I will."
In November 2024, the actor revealed that he had privately been receiving treatment for stage 3 colorectal cancer. Initially brushing off symptoms including irregular bowel movements, Van Der Beek assumed the change was down to his caffeine intake before he was diagnosed in the summer of 2023.
Van Der Beek gained widespread recognition as Dawson Leery in the US teen drama Dawson’s Creek, which ran for six seasons from 1998 to 2003. The show, which also featured Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson, and Michelle Williams, followed four hyper-articulate teenagers embroiled in complex romantic entanglements.
He went on to have a successful career in television, including roles in the main cast of Mercy, Law & Order, CSI: Cyber, Friends with Better Lives, the British sitcom Carters Get Rich, and Vampirina. Of his work in Carters Get Rich in 2017, he said: “When you think ‘British sitcom’, you don't think ‘James Van Der Beek’, huh? Well, I aim to change all that!”
