John Stamos Shares His Touching Eulogy From Bob Saget’s Memorial

John Stamos is sharing the touching tribute he read during Bob Saget’s memorial.

It was announced on Jan. 9 that Saget had died at the age of 65. Authorities confirmed the actor and comedian was found unresponsive in a room at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes. Information on the cause of death has not been released. A small, intimate funeral for Saget was held last Friday, with his close friends and loved ones in attendance, including his Full House castmates as well as John Mayer, Jimmy Kimmel and more.

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Stamos published his eulogy in the Los Angeles Times on Friday. In his remarks, he shared stories about his longtime friendship with Saget and also included some Full House references and jokes he thought Saget would’ve loved. Stamos also reflected on seeing Saget’s final Instagram post and recalling thinking that he “looked too ‘alive’ to die a few hours later.”

Said Stamos: “But I guess that’s right. We should all want to ‘die alive.’ We don’t want to be filled with regret and remorse, forgotten and discarded. We want to be overwhelmed with the privilege and bounty of doing what we do best. Bob felt young, energized, grateful and appreciated. The applause and laughter didn’t have time to die down before Bob did. He never ran out of cake … or the other stuff. He died bright and fierce.”

Stamos wrote that he wished the late actor-comedian “knew how much the world loved him when he was here. I spent many a night trying to convince him of how loved he really was (or maybe it was the other way around — him trying to convince me how loved he was),” he said. “But that was just Bob bluster. There’s no way he thought his death would have this kind of impact. This is the kind of coverage that speaks to someone who genuinely connected with people, and not just for a moment, but for generations.”

During his eulogy, Stamos also looked back on working with Saget on Full House, admitting they initially “didn’t really get along” due to their “different styles of acting.” However, Stamos noted, it didn’t take long for them to “meet in the middle and to respect each other professionally and creatively as the years went by.” Over the years, Stamos said, Saget became a “lifeline” for him, a constant support system and “rock” amid tough times, including when Stamos’ parents passed away. “Bob loved with everything he had. He taught me to be present with the ones I love. I hope he learned to internalize the love I felt for him,” he said.

Later on in his speech, Stamos reflected on hearing the shocking news of Saget’s passing. “When the news broke, I broke. I was shattered and felt worthless to help anyone else,” he said. He explained that afterward he visited Saget and wife Kelly Rizzo’s home, where he went into the backyard and saw Saget’s “last cigar was sitting in an ashtray by the jacuzzi. … I looked up to the sky and said, ‘Baby, please give me a sign from up there.’ (I called him ‘Baby’ because that’s how he entered his info into my phone years ago.) ‘Tell me you’re all right. Tell me not to feel bad.’ I waited a few minutes. Nothing. Asked again. Silence,” he said. But then, “a tiny hummingbird came fluttering down from above and landed on a tree right in front of me.”

Stamos explained that he felt hummingbirds “represented my parents, and this one was definitely my mother, who had red hair: She had bright red feathers around her neck like a scarf. She assured me Bob was OK and to stop looking for goofy signs. (How rude!) Then she flew up and away.

“Maybe I need to stop looking for Bob in the sky and accept that he’s just where he needs to be, peaceful, free, surrounded by the hummingbirds of past souls at rest,” he continued.

As for processing his own grief, Stamos explained that he’s “spent days refusing to let him go. But now I’m starting to realize I don’t have to. I don’t have to say goodbye because he’s never leaving my heart. And I will continue to talk to him every day and let him know what he means to me.

“Bob, I will never, ever have another friend like you. You will always be my best friend. You are my new guardian angel — a guardian angel with the dirtiest mouth and a heart as big and benevolent as forever,” he said, ending his eulogy with, “I love you, Baby.”

Following Saget’s passing, the actor was mourned by many in Hollywood, including the Full House cast, who said in a statement, “Thirty-five years ago, we came together as a TV family, but we became a real family. And now we grieve as a family.”

Stamos’ sharing of his eulogy follows Saget’s widow opening up about her own grief in interviews that aired Thursday on NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America. When speaking with Today’s Hoda Kotb, Rizzo recalled how many of those in attendance at the funeral told her they had spoken to Saget just a week before he died. “I’m like, ‘How did he have the time to talk to everybody and tell everybody that he loved them all the time?'” Rizzo said. “I knew that that’s how it was ’cause he told me 500 times a day, but there was not one person out there that doubted his love for him.”

Rizzo also shared Saget’s final words to her. “I think I said, ‘I love you dearly,’ and he said, ‘I love you endlessly,'” she recalled of their final conversation. “I said, ‘I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.'”

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