Gilda Radner died after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and it wouldn’t be Martin Short’s only experience losing someone he loved to that terrible disease. In 2012, Short spoke to Larry King about the loss of his wife, Nancy Dolman. Her death came three years after her diagnosis, after six months of being very, very sick, and after they had been together for 36 years.

In his memoir, “I Must Say,” he wrote about their burdens: “She was the patient, and I was the information coordinator.” Regular tests went up and down, hope was interspersed with despair and helplessness, and after they were told the chemo wasn’t working anymore, they still had hope… until they didn’t. She died on August 21, 2010, and Short later wrote, “Nancy’s death was awful, by far the most awful thing I’ve ever been through.” He rallied, though, knowing their three children were looking to him for support. He told them that the loss would put everything else in life into a terrible perspective, and they would find themselves facing something sad or stressful, and they would think: “This is fine. … I’m not upset now. I was upset the night my mother died.”

Four months after her death, Short was back at work. At work, there was a sense of normalcy. At home, however, the void was there. “You have to figure it out,” he told King. “This is a thing that none of us avoid.”