Kaitlin Olson Heartbroken Over Her Father’s Passing: “My Forever Favorite Person”

Kaitlin Olson is paying tribute to her father.

On Monday, May 18, the High Potential star announced the death of her father, Don Olson, with a heartfelt Instagram tribute, calling him “my first love, my first protector and my forever favorite person.”

“Honestly it feels a little gross to bring this to social media. It’s too fragile and too private. But nothing feels more wrong than to just move on with life as if the worst thing in the world didn’t happen,” Olson, 50, captioned a carousel of photos. “As if everything that matters didn’t just suddenly end.”

Olson continued, writing that her father “fought so hard and so long to stay with us.”

“I hate words right now. None are good enough to describe who he was,” she wrote. “The luckiest thing to happen to me in this lifetime was getting him as my dad. Maybe the second was the gift of holding him on his way out. I love you, daddy. I will keep all my promises. Just like you.”

In her post, the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star included a recent selfie with her dad, a few throwbacks of her spending time with him as a kid, a selfie of him with her husband Rob Mac and a photo of her holding his hand. “Words are impossible,” Mac, 49, wrote in the post’s comment section. “There is no one like him.”

He added, “My whole goal in life is to be half the man he was. I’ve never seen a person love someone the way he loved you. I am so grateful that he lived and so proud that I got to be his son for the past 17 years. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️”

According to the Portland Tribune, Don served as the publisher of the newspaper from 2000 to 2001. He previously told the Tribune that he wasn’t surprised by his daughter’s career trajectory, sharing in 2017 that “she certainly has passion.”

“At college, I suggested — a couple of times — that she pursue a second career. Something to fall back on,” he said at the time. “But she remained singularly focused on her passion.”

Kaitlin and Mac are parents to two sons: Leo, 14, and Axel, 15. The pair spoke with PEOPLE at the opening night of Broadway’s The Lost Boys on April 26 about their secret to being successful parents and being “purposeful” in how they manage their time. “Our kids come first,” she said. “It’s just a lot of communication, managing schedules and making sure that we are prioritizing our family here.”

“We love what we do, but we love each other more, and we recognize that if we’re not happy at home and the kids aren’t taken care of, and the dogs aren’t taken care of and the cat’s not taken care of, then it’s not gonna work,” Mac added.