In the quiet hush of a Texas sunset, James Van Der Beek was cherishing the beauty of each passing moment.
The Dawson’s Creek star died on 11 February following a years-long battle with stage 3 colorectal cancer, aged 48. In his final days at his Texas ranch, he was surrounded by love, reflection and an extraordinary sense of presence.
Among those who visited was WWE Hall of Famer, family friend Stacy Keibler, who has long shared a close bond with James and his wife, Kimberly Van Der Beek. Reflecting on their final evening together, she described a deeply moving moment as they watched the sun slip below the horizon while he spoke about life, hope and the promises they made to one another. As darkness fell, a shooting star crossed the sky, a moment she felt was far from random.
For Stacy, those last hours were “a true gift from God”. She shared how time seemed to slow, stripped of distraction and worry, replaced instead by stillness, listening, hand-holding and watching the sky change colour. Though his physical presence is gone, she expressed a belief that his spirit lives on, calling him “something extraordinary”.
James leaves behind his wife Kimberly and their six children: Olivia, 15; Joshua, 13; Annabel, 12; Emilia, 9; Gwendolyn, 7; and Jeremiah, 4.
His perspective on life had profoundly shifted after his cancer diagnosis in 2023. As he once reflected, “Presence is really the gift that cancer has given me.” Where he had once gathered life’s small, beautiful moments as memories, he learned instead to fully inhabit each one, to settle into the exact moment and truly live within it.
“Before cancer, I took all these little beautiful moments as part of a collection,” he told Today in December. “Now, I’m able much more to just settle into that exact moment.”
In his final chapter, that sense of presence became his legacy, a quiet reminder of the power of stillness, love and the fleeting beauty of time.