When Della Reese died in 2017, the world lost an angel. The actress and singer had been in show business for decades, breaking down barriers, standing up for women, spreading love in a world full of negativity, and more, all while living out her wildest dreams.

On Touched by an Angel, she played Tess, and Roma Downey played Monica. Reese met Downey when she was a young woman, just starting to navigate life as an adult in an industry that attempts to change women every chance they get. Reese instilled in her what true self-acceptance looks like and gave Downey motherly love. It's something the actress said she'll never forget.

"I think I'll just always remember the feel of her neck against my cheek when she hugs me, and the love I know that she has for me and the love that I feel for her and the love that she has for God. To know Della is to know that she loves God," Downey said, according to E Online.

Reese lived out the lyrics of Touched by an Angel's theme song, and she wanted nothing more than to help others. Downey said Della Reese coming into her life was an answered prayer.

"My mother had died when I was 10 years of age," Downey told CBS News in 2015, "and you know, my whole life, I was looking for that mother figure, that nurturing figure, and I can see a lot of my own behavior, particularly through adolescence that was almost like a cry out for that...and I had a prayer as a young girl that somehow someone would come into my life and fill that roll. Well, it's a prayer that took almost 20 years to be answered."