Walt Disney Television/Todd Wawrychuk
General Hospital alum Coby Ryan McLaughlin (ex-Shiloh) took to Instagram to relay the heartbreaking news that his longtime girlfriend, Mel, has passed away.
In his message, McLaughlin wrote, “I posted this originally a couple days ago and took it down almost immediately. It felt too soon… I think it will always feel too soon.” While not revealing the cause of her death, the actor paid a heartfelt tribute to his love, addressing her as “My beautiful beloved” and writing, “The first thing I noticed about you was how you moved. Always in some sort of fluid motion… even when you were sitting still; always swaying to a melody that only you could hear. Music. I could feel it when you touched me. We moved as one. Always in step. Easy. When we would lay next to each other, our bodies shifted effortlessly. As one. The way you touched me… pure. Perfectly honest in intention. Light. Love. So full of love… we would lay in bed staring into each other, neither sharing the secrets of our thoughts. Didn’t have to. You looked at me with eyes so deeply full of love and trust… like it was predetermined from countless other lifetimes. It was the safest, most familiar thing I’ve ever known, and when you pulled me in to breathe with you, I was home. Breathing with you…”
He continued, “We would intertwine in one another. Heart to heart, suspended, floating in nothingness… Together. Safe. Breathing you in… Your smell. I could smell you all over me. Completely. Your skin, your hair… my God, what I wouldn’t give to bury myself in you one last time, a handful of your hair, and just breathe. Big, deep breaths, pulling that smell of home down deep inside of my lungs, letting it permeate every fiber of my being until I thought my heart would explode with the love I felt for you. My person. My friend. My beloved. I am utterly destroyed from your early departure. I could not fathom the amount of pain that you were in. I could not help you. I could not save you. I know there will be a light again somewhere, someday, but today I am completely empty, and my despair bottomless. I know you found the peace you needed. I’m sorry it couldn’t be in this lifetime. I promise I will find you again. I will know it’s you. I will come to you and we will once again move in step, bound in an endless union that knows no time, and has no constraints. I love you endlessly, my beautiful woman. Until the next lifetime.”
In 2019, McLaughlin opened up to Digest about his romantic life, sharing that he had been dating Mel for a year and a half after meeting her “at a kid’s birthday party, of course.” The single dad chuckled, “That’s my social circle now.” He explained that he’d escorted his daughter, Nico, to a birthday celebration “for one of her classmates in Malibu and I was talking to her little friend’s father and Mel, my girlfriend, walked in. I was like, ‘Oh, wow!’ I was asking this guy all these questions about her, like, ‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ and he goes, ‘Man, I don’t know, she’s right there! Go talk to her!’ So I did and that was it.” The actor proudly added that Mel and Nico got along “like peas and carrots. Every time I grab the kid, literally the first thing out of my daughter’s mouth isn’t, ‘Hi!’ or ‘Love you, Dad,’ or, ‘Glad to see you,’ it’s, ‘Is Mel home? Is [Mel’s dog] Lady in the car?’ ”
Our hearts go out to McLaughlin and Mel’s other loved ones.
