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Anderson Cooper returned to work on Thursday, where he ended his CNN show AC360 with an emotional tribute to his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt.

He started off by thanking the people who reached out to send their condolences and support in the wake of her death on Monday, saying his mother 'would be stunned by all the attention and the kind words written and spoken about her.'

Cooper then revealed that his mother had only learned about her cancer diagnosis nine days before her passing, but was able to spend that time with family and friends.

'It was the best end possible to her remarkable life,' said a choked-up Cooper.

'Being able to spend those nine days and nights with her was a great, great blessing. They were the most extraordinary days of my life and I'm very grateful.'

He continued: 'She died Monday shortly after 4am, and though I was holding her hand and her head when she took her last breath it's still a little hard for me to believe she's gone.'

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American author and actor Wyatt Emory Cooper and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper sit with their sons, Carter and Anderson in 1972. Cooper's father died when he was ten and his brother jumped from their Manhattan apartment when Cooper was 21

In Cooper's first show back on Thursday evening he told viewers of the loneliness which was weighting on him after his mother's death

Cooper told his viewers how they had held hands in her final days and played a famous Peggy Lee record

Cooper then struggled to fight back tears as he spoke about losing the last remaining member of his immediate family.

'One of her friends explained her sadness by describing my mom as her North Star, the person she used as a guide, a kind of light in the darkness,' said Cooper. 

'I never realized until now how much she was my North Star as well. And right now things seem a lot less bright and magical without her.'

He then mentioned that his father passed away when he was 10 and his brother Carter when he was 21, leaving just him and his mother.

'She was the last of my immediate family, the last that knew me from the beginning,' said Cooper, speaking slowly to mask his emotion.

'They're all gone and it feels very lonely right now. I hope they are at least together.' 

Cooper said that in the end he was glad that he was able to take care of his mother, noting it might be the thing he is most proud of when he leaves this world. 

'I’m happy we left nothing unsaid between us. She knew me and I knew her, and there's great comfort in that,' noted Cooper.

He then spoke about one of their final night together, after her diagnosis.

'"You and I, it's a match made in heaven,"' she said to me last week. "We're a good team," I told her,' said Cooper.

'We stayed up late that night holding hands and when she got sleepy and I got ready to go home she said to me what a wonderful night, and it was. Perhaps our best.'

He then closed out by playing her favorite Peggy Lee song, Is That All There Is, which he had posted clip of earlier in the week.

Cooper described how the last nine days he had spent with his mother were 'the most extraordinary days of my life'

Last night he told his viewers of his family, 'They’re all gone and it feels very lonely right now. I hope they are at least together'

Cooper had spoken in the past about this day, and in one heartbreaking passage from his memoir explained: 'My father died in 1978, when I was ten; and my brother, Carter, killed himself in 1988, when I was twenty-one, so my mom is the last person left from my immediate family, the last person alive who was close to me when I was a child.' 

Vanderbilt and her oldest son Stan, 68, had a close relationship but that was not the case with Christopher, 67, who had been estranged from his mother for over four decades. 

In addition to her three sons, Vanderbilt is survived by at least two granddaughters, a grandson and two great-grandchildren.

Vanderbilt's youngest son, 52-year-old Cooper, did begin speaking with his brother two years ago after he and their mother published their memoir The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss.

That book focused a good deal on Vanderbilt's third child, Cooper's brother Carter, who took his life at the age of 23 in 1988 by jumping off the balcony of the family's Manhattan apartment building. 

Vanderbilt, who passed away on Monday at the age of 95, also appeared with Cooper in the HBO documentary Nothing Left Unsaid that same year.  

Cooper paid tribute to his mother in a pair of poignant social media posts on Tuesday, first on his own account and then later on his mother's Instagram page. 

Vanderbilt was to be buried alongside her fourth husband Wyatt, who passed away in 1978, and her son Carter at the Vanderbilt family's plot in Staten Island.  

She and Cooper were seen visiting the burial plot in their HBO documentary, in which Vanderbilt spoke far more about her late son than Cooper.

'I love to talk about him. It brings him alive, it brings him close. It helps me sort of share how I felt about him, feel about him,' she said back in 2017 while appearing on CBS Sunday Morning. 

Hollywood men: Vanderbilt was linked to Frank Sinatra after her second marriage fell apart (pair on left in 1954) and later wed Sidney Lumet (right in the 1960s)

Early start: Vanderbilt was just 17 when she married  her first husband, agent and movie producer Pat DiCicco (above in 1941)

Family: She was to be buried alongside her fourth husband Wyatt and son Carter at the Vanderbilt's family plot in their hometown of Staten Island (the Coopers in 1972)

Cooper said that he had a different reaction to it all, and struggled to deal with the loss of his brother and father. 

'For me, it certainly changed who I was,' he explained in that same interview.

'I think the person I was before was a lot more interesting and outgoing. I became probably much more introverted, and very concerned about what catastrophe was going to happen next.

'And it made me much more of an adult.'

Vanderbilt also paid tribute to her son back in 2018 on Instagram.

'Thirty years ago today, before my eyes, I lost Carter Cooper. My son. My life. My hope,' wrote Vanderbilt.

'In the years since, his brother, my beloved Anderson, has been by my side, giving me love and strength. Carter is close and alive within me, as he was from the beginning, and as he always will be.'

In an excerpt from their memoir, Cooper writes that he and his team were heading off on assignment back in 2015 when he called his mother right before he departed to let her know he would be away and working overseas.

'When she picked up the phone, immediately I knew something was wrong. Her breath was short, and she could barely speak,' writes Cooper.

Vanderbilt was sick for the next few months, battling a respiratory infection, and told Cooper at one point; 'I'd like to have several more years left. There are still things I'd like to create, and I'm very curious to see how it all turns out. What's going to happen next?'

Shortly after they started work on the memoir, which they composed in a series of email exchanges over the course of a year. 

Cooper summarized his mother's life at the start of the memoir by writing: 'My mom has been famous for longer than just about anyone else alive today. Her birth made headlines, and for better or worse, she's been in the public eye ever since. 

'Her successes and failures have played out on a very brightly lit stage, and she has lived many different lives; she has been an actress, an artist, a designer, and a writer; she's made fortunes, lost them, and made them back again.'

He went on to write: 'She has survived abuse, the loss of her parents, the death of a spouse, the suicide of a son, and countless other traumas and betrayals that might have defeated someone without her relentless determination.'

The two corresponded through emails while working on the memoir, and Cooper revealed that in the end the two got much more than just a book.

'I know now that it's never too late to change the relationship you have with someone important in your life: a parent, a child, a lover, a friend. All it takes is a willingness to be honest and to shed your old skin, to let go of the long-standing assumptions and slights you still cling to,' he wrote.

'I hope what follows will encourage you to think about your own relationships and perhaps help you start a new kind of conversation with someone you love.'

Cooper then asked: 'After all, if not now, when?'