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Days of Our Lives has had to say a painful goodbye to too many beloved actors lately — and their legendary characters. But

due, in part, to the show’s advanced shooting schedule, the onscreen and offscreen farewells tend to be very far apart.

When John Aniston passed, it took nine months to say farewell to Victor onscreen. Doug’s death has been held nearly a year after Bill Hayes’ passing to tie it to the show’s 15,000th episode.Drake Hogestyn died a little over a month ago, which has left folks wondering when we’ll lose John, especially since his fight with pancreatic cancer sadly meant he wasn’t able to film during the final months of his life.

We knew from the season trailer the show just released at Day of Days that John would be disappearing soon, and we figured that would explain his inevitable absence. But it sounds like we’ll be saying goodbye to John sooner than we think — because his farewell was filmed while Hogestyn was still alive. Executive Producer Ken Corday told Soap Opera Digest that the decision to do that wasn’t easy, especially with Hogestyn fighting his hardest to beat the cancer. But he was gone for so long that, ultimately, they needed to find a reason to explain where John was.

But while killing off characters is part and parcel of daytime television, doing it while the actor is fighting for his life is not a decision you make lightly. So Corday reached out to Hogestyn to talk about what they should do.

“I wanted to make sure Drake signed off on this,” he told SOD, “and he was totally in favor of it. He trusted me. Had Drake, God willing, beaten this, he would’ve come back, and it would’ve been something different.”

Stephen Nichols (Steve) added that he “didn’t, at first, agree with what was going on.” Hogestyn was still alive. But that’s also what ultimately made it OK. John’s portrayer “gave his blessing to the storyline beforehand to Ken. So if it was okay with him, then I felt that I had to do my part.” But it was still, “the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

And Deidre Hall made clear that while they gave the storyline their all, it was not a farewell to Hogestyn. “Drake was still with us,” Marlena’s portrayer said to SOD. “He was looking forward to coming back, and he was fighting the good fight. So we had not said goodbye to him yet. And we weren’t thinking good-bye to him at that point.”

But it is, she added, an incredible end for John and, now that Hogestyn has passed, his legacy. “It will go through all the years,” Hall promised, saying there will be plenty of flashbacks. “There’s a lot of history and a lot of heart.”

One thing we do know is that getting through this won’t be easy. But farewells never are, no matter when they come.