From Salem’s central square to viewers’ hearts, Days of Our Lives has always excelled at capturing emotional intensity. Among the show’s most powerful assets is its ability to turn screen departures into soul-stirring moments—when the onscreen goodbye is as real as the love audiences feel. In Salem, when someone leaves—whether it’s a character moving on or an actor stepping away—the emotion cuts straight through the screen

And sometimes, it’s not just fiction. Sometimes, the pain you see is real.

Here are four goodbyes that didn’t just mark the end of a storyline—they became a shared emotional release for both cast and audience.

When John Black laid in that hospital bed, still and silent, it wasn’t just another soap opera moment. It was a farewell stitched together with real-life sorrow. Actor Drake Hogestyn, who had portrayed the beloved John for nearly four decades, was battling terminal illness in real life as his final scenes were being filmed.

But Days did something extraordinary—they didn’t separate the man from the character.