Carrie Fisher's Daughter Honors the 'Star Wars' Legend With Rare Throwback Photo

Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher unexpectedly died on Dec. 27, 2016, after she went into cardiac arrest on a flight from London to Los Angeles. Her daughter, Billie Lourd, was extremely close with her mother and took some time to honor her with a touching post and a rare throwback family photo nine years after her death.

After getting her morning kiss from her 3-year-old daughter, Jackson Joanne Lourd Rydell, Lourd “told her how much her grandmomby would have loved her,” she shared in a candid Instagram post.

“We walked to breakfast with my dad [Bryan Lourd] and they ran around together like two old souls that have known each other forever,” she continued. Though it’s a sad day for the family, Lourd approached it with joy and gratefulness, saying that “Watching my dad with my kids is one of the greatest joys I’ve ever known.” Lourd and her husband, Austen Rydell, also share a son, 5-year-old Kingston Fisher Lourd Rydell.

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“I started thinking about how this joy wouldn’t be possible without my mom,” Lourd explained. “This joy only exists because she existed. So even though she is not physically part of this joy, she is part of the reason for it. Even though she is not alive, she lives on through this joy.”

Lourd added that while her journey through grief will never be over, it does “take on many shapes.” On the anniversary of her mom’s death, it looks like “bittersweet grieful (sic) joy.”

“As my mom wisely said, ‘Nothing is ever really over. Just over there,'” she shared. “My momby’s life isn’t really over. Just over there: In my kids and in this joy I’m able to experience because of her. Thank you, momby. I will never stop missing you.”

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The sweet message was accompanied by a photo of her, Fisher, and her Hollywood agent father, in their living room with balloons when Lourd was a child, and a photo of her dad with her two kids at Christmas this year. While Fisher and Bryan Lourd broke up when Lourd was just a toddler, they remained on good terms. Bryan even attended Fisher’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony.

“She was loved by the world, and she will be missed profoundly,” Lourd said in a statement after her mom’s death in 2016. “Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers.”