The new year has not been easy for Julie, as she’s struggled to face its start without her beloved Doug. And our hearts are going out to Susan Seaforth Hayes, who has had to say goodbye to her husband right along with Julie. Still, it was a rare, beautiful gift that the Hayes found love together both onscreen and off, and that it endured for so many incredible decades.

In fact, that’s what made Julie’s eulogy to Doug so special. The show worked with Seaforth Hayes to pull excerpts from her own eulogy to her husband (which you can watch here), and weave Hayes’ life into Doug’s.

Julie concluded her eulogy with, “Why do we love him so much? Because he saw us, he really saw us. Doug gave everyone — a visitor at the door or a troubled grandchild — this greeting. He was always smiling and it was full of optimistic expectations. What he saw in us was something wonderful. And we became, in his company, as wonderful as we all ought to be.”

And we knew, of course that she wasn’t just talking about Doug. She was also talking about Bill Hayes. As executive producer Ken Corday shared with Soaps.com a few years back, the man onscreen was the same man off it. He was, Corday shared with The Wrap after Hayes’ passing, “the heart and soul of” the show.

At Hayes’ passing, Peter Reckell (Bo) shared a video message on his website explaining, “You ever have that feeling where you meet someone and just… wanna be part of their family? Well, that’s the way it was with Mr. Bill Hayes for me. He would just open up his heart and let you in, and you’d just wanna hang there in his warm embrace.”

But it wasn’t just his love and warmth that made Hayes so special. He was also an unbelievably talented man who excelled at everything he tried his hand at, whether acting, singing, dancing, performing in Broadway or even writing songs — many of which both Seaforth Hayes and Julie shared at the funerals of their beloved husbands. As James Reynolds (Abe) shared on Instagram at the time, “I was a little boy when I heard the Davy Crockett song on the radio. I had no idea the man singing that song would be my friend and colleague for over 40 years. I loved Bill Hayes! I am so glad our life paths ran together for so long.”

They truly do not make them like Bill Hayes anymore. Smart, loving, talented and dedicated, it’s not just Salem that seems a little less bright without him in it, but the whole world.