Countless Paul Walker tributes flooded social media Friday on the fifth anniversary of the Fast and the Furious actor’s sudden death. He was killed in an explosive car accident on Nov. 30, 2013, alongside friend and driver, Roger Rodas.
Walker’s mother told PEOPLE earlier this year about the last time she saw her son, which was the morning of his death in her kitchen with his daughter, Meadow.
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Walker was on a break from filming the Fast & Furious franchise’s seventh movie and decided he would pick out a Christmas tree that evening with 15-year-old Meadow.
“We were having this good conversation, and he’d forgotten about an event he had,” Walker’s mother, Cheryl, said. “He got a text and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m supposed to be somewhere!’”
That event was a charity car show for his organization Reach Out Worldwide. Several hours later, while leaving the event, he decided to take a ride in a red Carrera GT Porsche with Rodas. The car crashed and exploded, killing them both.
“I think so many people think, ‘Oh, he was just a movie star who was killed in a car accident,’” Cheryl said. “But there was so much more to him. That was just a piece of who he was. He was an amazing man.”
Every year on Walker’s birthday on Sept. 12, his family goes to one of his favorite surf spots on Huntington Beach and throws sunflowers in the ocean, telling their favorite memories of him.
“I’ve gotten letters from people all over the world who said he made a difference in their lives,” Cheryl said. “That is such a blessing. He’s never forgotten.”
Meadow and Rodas’ widow, Kristine, recently settled separate lawsuits with Porsche. Kristine claimed faulty mechanics were to blame for the crash. Meadow believed that Walker survived the collision but burned alive after being trapped by his seatbelt. Walker’s father also reached a similar settlement with the company.
Walker’s brothers, Caleb and Cody Walker, worked with Fast & Furious producers to finish his work as lead character Brian O’Conner in Furious 7. They worked as stand-ins for certain shots and filmed a CGI-assisted shot of Brian leaving the Fast crew and driving into the sunset at the film’s close.
Caleb and Cody spoke to the Associated Press in August, expressing their interest in doing a similar process for future Fast & Furious films, perhaps in a cameo-focused one, as opposed to a full CGI return.
“I just hope we get to — I don’t know — have a little cameo and bring Paul back to save the day and I get to help create that again,” Caleb said. “That’s my dream, and I hope we get to do that in one of the future movies.”
