Two men learned they lost loved ones on the same date
Mac Sinise died on January 5th, 2024, the same date Anderson Cooper lost his father in 1978, and the two men agreed to mark it together.
All There Is with Anderson Cooper · Gary Sinise: ‘The Hole In The Heart Is Always There’Gary Sinise named the date. His son Mac had died on January 5th, 2024. Anderson Cooper, who was talking with him about grief, answered with a date of his own: his father had died on January 5th, 1978.
Cooper paused after saying it. With a smack of his lips, he said, "excuse me," as he tried to continue. Sinise said, "Oh my gosh."
The exchange is about what sharing a date on the calendar can mean. Here, a father who had lost his son and a son who had lost his father decades earlier realized they return to the same day each year, 46 years apart.
Cooper said, "I find that day on the calendar has always been very, very difficult, and I'm sorry that that day may be difficult for you now." Sinise agreed that it is a difficult day, and added that it is also his parents' anniversary.
Cooper was 10 when his father died, so decades have passed. He said he is now the only one left in his life who remembers that day as significant, and he no longer gets messages from people saying they are thinking of him. He said he understands that and does not expect it.
He said he thinks everyone listening probably has days like that, which mean a great deal to them while other people have no idea. He called it a "secret history" on the calendar.
For Cooper, the weight gathers before the date itself. He said he works on New Year's Eve because he has always hated it. He remembered being 10, watching the ball drop with an ominous feeling that something terrible was going to happen. His father was in the hospital then, and died five days later. He asked Sinise whether New Year's feels different to him now, with January 5th looming.
Sinise answered that it does a bit, because he had to call an ambulance for Mac on December 30th.
At the end of their talk, they decided how they would meet January 5th from now on. Cooper told Sinise, "on January 5th from now on, I will think of you and your family and think of Mac and say a prayer." Sinise said he would think of Cooper's father in return.
Questions people ask
Who was Mac?
Mac was Gary Sinise's son. He died at age 33 from chordoma, a very rare cancer that grows at the base of the spine or the base of the skull. In his final year, he finished an album of music he had started in college.
Who was Anderson Cooper's father?
Cooper's father was Wyatt Cooper, a writer and editor who was born in Mississippi. He died in 1978 when Anderson Cooper was 10 years old. Cooper has said his father cried whenever he heard Amazing Grace.
Why do dates on the calendar hit grieving people so hard?
Grief researchers often call them anniversary reactions. Around the date of a death, or the days leading up to it, people may feel sadness, anxiety, or vivid memories, even years later. Marking the day with a ritual, or having someone else remember it with you, can make it easier to bear.