Jennifer Love Hewitt discussed how she keeps her late mother Patricia’s memory alive despite losing her to cancer 12 years ago.
“One day I was like ‘I think it’s time to sort of write down how I feel about her and honor her in some way,’” the actress, 45, told Page Six in an exclusive interview.
The result was “Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical” in which Hewitt discusses her grief and the idea of creating magic as a family.
“I think a magic for us in our family and I think for my mom, she was really an intention and sort of a mindset,” the “Ghost Whisperer” star explained. “It was like, ‘How do you look at a normal dinner party and add magic to it?’
“Or, you know, with my kids, we do moon water where we put intentions into this water that we’re going to drink the next day. We set it out on the moon and it’s not expensive. It’s very silly. But again, it’s setting the intention that we’re going to feel magical when we do it.”
Hewitt went on to describe her mom as “the most magical person” she had ever met.
“We were best friends,” she added.
The “I Know What You Did Last Summer” star recalled that her mom would string up Christmas lights in her room “if [she] had a broken heart or bad cramps or whatever it was.”
“She took like ordinary things and sort of added magic to them. And so that’s what I try to do for my kids now,” she continued.
In 2012, Hewiit announced the death of her mother following a cancer battle. She was 67.
“Her family mourns her loss,” the actress’ rep told People at the time. “She was an angel to all who knew her and they are grateful she is now in a better place.”
The “9-1-1” star also described spreading holiday magic with her new TV movie, “The Holiday Junkie,” which she co-wrote, directed and stars in. In it, she plays a woman, who finds love during the holiday season after her mother’s death.
“[It’s a] really sweet movie, it has all the things you want a Christmas movie to have but this one is different because it does deal with grief and it does deal with sadness at the holidays,” she said of the Lifetime movie.
“I really wanted to tell people that it is OK to have both and that a lot of people have both. And that doesn’t mean that you’re not doing Christmas right. It means you’re being real about it and that’s beautiful and that they can both exist at the same time.”
The “Ghost Whisperer” alum also tapped into her real-life relationship for the movie by casting her own husband, Brian Hallisay, as her character’s love interest.
Hewitt said they loved working together, adding, “We have three kids. It was the first time in a long time that we’ve been alone. And it’s just like us without the kids.
“And this was really like a concentrated time where we were getting to create something together. But also our job was to fall in love with each other again every single day for 15 days. It was quite beautiful. I really left the movie going, ‘God, I love this guy. And I’m like super psyched that I’m married to him.’”
Hallisay and Hewitt tied the knot in 2013 and share three kids: Autumn, 11, Atticus, 9, and Aidan, 3.
The “Party of Five” alum will be making her live debut on HSN on Tuesday, where customers who purchase a copy of the book will have a one in five chance of randomly receiving an autographed bookplate.
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