After “Grey’s Anatomy” actor Eric Dane died in February, his wife, Rebecca Gayheart, went to a medium.
The medium told the actress that Dane would come to their family as a hummingbird, spider or dragonfly. Now, she finds her home and yard full of the creatures. And sometimes, when Gayheart turns on the car, a song Dane loved starts playing, even when her phone isn’t connected.
In these implausible moments, Gayheart and the couple’s teenage daughters know it’s Dane saying hello.
Dane died Feb. 19 at 53 of complications from ALS. He announced less than a year earlier that he had been diagnosed with the nervous system disease, which is short for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He continued acting, appearing on NBC's "Brilliant Minds" and returning
as Cal Jacobs in Season 3 of “Euphoria.” He also became an advocate for people living with ALS.
Dane’s deeply personal memoir, “My Book of Days” (out now from The Open Field) chronicles his battle with ALS, but also touches on his early career days, addiction and family. He leaves advice and last wishes for his daughters, 16-year-old Billie and 14-year-old Georgia. He also describes unconditional support for Gayheart, his “best friend.” The pair married in 2004 and separated in 2018, but never signed divorce papers. After Dane was diagnosed, she dismissed the divorce filing. "Our love may not be romantic, but it's a familial love," she wrote in The Cut in 2025.
Speaking with USA TODAY ahead of Dane's posthumous release, Gayheart says she hopes the memoir will help fans see him “beyond McSteamy," his heartthrob character on "Grey's Anatomy."
“He was a very complicated human being,” Gayheart says. “We all are. Humans are complicated. Someone may look shiny and perfect on the outside, but they may not feel that way on the inside."
Rebecca Gayheart is learning ‘grief is not linear’
Gayheart remembers waiting for the call in 2024. Dane was in San Francisco with a neurologist, about to hear results. She remembers thinking it couldn’t be ALS.
“I was positive that it was something else, and so I was utterly shocked and heartbroken. I remember one of my daughters was home, and in the room, when I got the call, and I said, ‘I'm gonna take this call’ to give me some privacy, and I went into my closet, actually, and I closed the door,” Gayheart says. “I can't really describe what it's like to do that, because I knew what ALS meant. I knew the endgame.”
In his memoir, between stories from his life and career, Dane leaves lessons for his two daughters. He ends the book telling them to “Fight, girls – and hold your heads high.”
Nine months later, the family is understanding that “grief is not linear,” Gayheart says.
“There’s a lot of time where you just feel angry or upset, and mad, or you miss the person, and just mad that you can't talk to them again,” Gayheart says. “For me, it's someone who I had my kids with, and watching my children grow up, and not being able to talk to the person that I want to tell about it. You know? They're changing, and they're having their firsts, and their disappointments, and their heartbreaks, and their triumphs, and I want to call Eric and tell him about it, and I can't. And that’s really hard.”
Eric Dane would be ‘really happy’ with memoir
Gayheart was flying home from filming “The Ocean Between Them” in Belize when she first read the memoir. It was a “very teary plane ride home,” she says.
Dane worked on "My Book of Days" for the last year of his life with writer Alan Eisenstock, who sat with Dane while he told his story by way of his most consequential days. As Dane’s health deteriorated, the project became more difficult, Gayheart says. But they kept working on it right up until the end. Gayheart agreed to speak about the book publicly if Dane died before it came out. But actually having to take on that responsibility was a “big surprise,” she says.
“I don't think any of us ever imagined that we would lose Eric before this book was finished,” Gayheart says.
Today, Dane’s words will find a home on bookstore displays and on reader's bookshelves. Though he's not here to celebrate it, Gayheart says Dane would be “really happy” with how it came out.
“There’s just a beautiful message in the book for everyone, which is ‘Don’t wait.’ Life is precious and it’s so easy to forget that,” she says. “Take all the shots, do all the things and be a good friend, be a good sister, be a good father, husband, wife – whatever it is. I think that is a message that will resonate with anyone, whether you are struggling with a terminal disease or whether you’re just sort of going through life and not taking advantage of every minute of every day.”
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, covering buzzy releases, chatting with authors and diving into the culture of reading. Find heron Instagram, subscribe to our weeklyBooks newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Eric Dane's wife wants fans to see 'beyond McSteamy' to the complicated person he was
