Blake Lively is celebrating a bittersweet Father’s Day this year, honoring her own dad while paying tribute to her husband and the father of her children.
On Sunday, June 20, the actress shared a sweet photo to Instagram that showed her late father, Ernie Lively, with a big smile on his face as he wrapped his arms around his son-in-law, Ryan Reynolds .
“My guys,” she simply captioned it, adding brown heart emojis. Ryan also shared the picture to his Instagram Story, adding, “Those paws.”
Known for roles in projects like The Dukes of Hazzard and for starring opposite Blake in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, this marks the first Father’s Day since Ernie’s passing. He died on June 3 at age 74 from cardiac complications.
This sweet memory from Blake marks the second time the actress has honored her father since his passing last month.
Back in June, just a week after he died, Lively posted a photo of her dad giving her a kiss on the head as she looked down at the floor with a huge smile. Similarly to her Father’s Day post, she simply captioned the Instagram Story with a big brown heart emoji.
© Blake LivelyWhile Ernie’s passing has to be a huge blow to Blake and the whole family, she and her kids--James, 6, Inez, 4, and Betty, 1--are in good hands with Reynolds, who loves nothing more than being a father.
“I used to say to [Blake], ‘I would take a bullet for you. I could never love anything as much as I love you.’ I would say that to my wife,” the Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard explained to David Letterman back in 2015. “And the second I looked in that baby’s eyes, I knew in that exact moment that if we were ever under attack, I would use my wife as a human shield to protect that baby.”
Reynolds is obviously wild about his children, but he does still miss the “good old days” now and again. Soon after his second daughter was born, he tweeted that fatherhood was the most amazing feeling that exists...well, next to not being a father.
“Being A Father Is The Single Greatest Feeling On Earth,” he wrote at the time. “Not Including Those Wonderful Years I Spent Without A Child, Of Course”
