In the beginning of Wednesday’s special Halloween episode, Claire (Julie Bowen) gets an unexpected phone call from her stepfather informing her of her mum, DeDe’s (Shelley Long), death. While it’s unknown how she died in the beginning, the family is informed at the end of the episode that DeDe died “peacefully in her sleep.”
As each member of the family attempts to work through the grieving process in their own ways, they all reminisce about the happy (and not-so-happy times) they each shared with DeDe.
“I was just thinking about this great Halloween with mum,” Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) tells his sister, Claire, as they’re handing out candy to trick or treaters. “I wasn’t really fitting in in high school, so mom took me to go get ice cream at this place in West Hollywood and the parade was going on and before that, I had never been to a gay event. The thing is, she didn’t force me to talk about it. She just let it be. i think that was her way of saying she was okay with me.”
“I remember once that mum told me that I ate ice cream like a prostitute,” Claire recalls.
Throughout the past 10 seasons, DeDe has made a name for herself as the critical (and sometimes passive aggressive) mother, grandmother, and ex-wife. Still, Long’s character made a lasting impression on the Modern Familyfamily.
In September, co-creator Christopher Lloyd told Entertainment Weekly that a “significant character on the series” will die in the show’s tenth (and likely final) season.
Lloyd also said that while he hopes the long-running series will get picked up for another year, season 10 would serve as a fitting send-off.
“From our standpoint creatively we’ve gotten excited writing this season and changing the lives of the characters — some in a significant way — and it’s made us think, ‘Wow, there’s a lot to explore in the lives of these characters,’ ” he said, adding that “they’re in many ways such different characters than they were five or 10 years ago when we started.”
“So our standpoint was, ‘Well, if we can do another season, we may as well,’ ” he said, adding that “if it winds up that we tried and just couldn’t make it work, we will have a great final season for sure.”
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE