By 1979, Vivian Vance knew that she was dying from advanced bone cancer. In a truly heart-breaking turn, doctors had originally thought Vance had breast cancer, and as Outsider says, had performed a mastectomy in an attempt to treat her illness. She then went through chemotherapy, but to no effect. This happened over a decade after "The Lucy Show" finished in 1968, and Ball and Vance remained as inseparable as always.
Before Vance died, Ball visited her to see each other one final time at Vance's Belvedere, California home. Vance was brought into the living room, laid on the couch, and she and Ball had lunch together. By all accounts, there was as much grief present as there was love."You could hear them laughing, and towards the end there was a lot of sobbing," Paige Peterson said, daughter of Vance's landlord who grew close to Vance in her last days. She continued, "It was an amazing thing to witness. The love of these two women."
Ball was completely "inconsolable" after Vance died. Balls' daughter Lucie Arnaz said, "She cried about losing Viv for months after that. Viv was, in many ways, like a sister to my mother. She could talk to Mom like nobody else, and I don't think my mother could confide in many people the way she would with Viv."
