Gary Sinise and His Family Share the Hope They Found in Gifts Left Behind by His Late Son (Exclusive)

Sinise’s new memoir, Graceful Warrior is out Nov. 10

Gary Sinise’s new memoir recounts his family’s years of health challenges and their son Mac’s death in 2024

Sinise, his wife Moira and daughters Sophie and Ella sat down with PEOPLE to talk about finding strength in Mac’s memory and through their Catholic faith

The family says Mac’s resilience and the gifts he left behind continue to inspire them

Gary Sinise is sitting with his wife, Moira, and their two daughters in front of a small pile of rosaries. Moira, a cane by her side, wraps her hands around a strand of the beads and poses a question to a PEOPLE video crew standing nearby: “I want to say a prayer with everyone. Is that okay?”

Clearing his throat, Sinise, 71, picks up a worn copy of St. Augustine’s prayers—a favorite of his son Mac, who gifted it to his mother — and the Oscar-nominated actor begins to read in a familiar midwestern, gravel-tinged tone: “Out of an infinite love, you, oh Lord, have made me an heir of your kingdom...” The passage ends with a plea: “Lord keep me from despair.”

Moira, 72, smiles. “That’s my armor,” she says.

Over the past eight years, the former CSI: NY star and his family have had to steel themselves against a series of unthinkable battles that could easily have plunged them into despair: a degenerative spine condition and surgeries that left Moira in chronic pain; a one-two punch when Mac was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer just as Moira was undergoing treatment for breast cancer; and Mac’s death in 2024 at the age of 33.

“It was a heck of a journey, a difficult one, but one that we traveled together,” says Sinise, who chronicled it all in his new memoir Graceful Warrior: The True Story of a Son, a Father and a Family Who Carried Each Other Through (out Nov. 10). “I hope the resilience I write about will help someone else find their own kind of courage.”

In an emotional interview, Sinise, Moira and their two daughters, Sophie, 38, and Ella, 34, sat down with PEOPLE to talk about losing Mac — and learning from him — and how they found strength in family and in their Catholic faith. “You can go two ways when hard things come,” says Sophie. “You can let it defeat you, or you can choose to lean on each other and God. That’s what drove us.”

The Sinise family has weathered adversity before.

By the mid-‘90s, the actor was in high demand after his critically acclaimed turn in the 1992 film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and a breakthrough role as disabled Vietnam veteran Lt. Dan playing opposite Tom Hanks in the Oscar-winning Forrest Gump. But back at home with three kids under the age of 10, Moira was struggling. “He was gone a lot, and I was having a hard time with Hollywood and raising children.”

“It’s rough on families,” says Moira, an actress who first met Sinise in Chicago in 1976 when she joined the ensemble of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which Sinise co-founded. The two married in 1981 and moved to L.A. six years later. “There was always some gala, some party, and I never really enjoyed that part of the business,” she says. “I’m friendly, so I would end up eating and drinking too much.” In 1997 she went to rehab for alcohol addiction and “went back to my Irish Catholic roots.” She began attending church again. “I got grounded,” she says. Says Sophie: “There was no perfection in our family, but my parents were always asking for forgiveness and continuing to love each other despite the difficult things.”

Gary Sinise and family on the set of ‘Mission to Mars’ in 1999

By the age of 53, Moira was diagnosed with degenerative lumbar disc disease and had undergone two hip replacements and spinal surgery. She’d eventually have seven more major spine surgeries, including several fusions, leaving her permanently disabled and unable to drive. “She relies on me a lot because she is challenged physically, and that frustrates her,” says Sinise. “But she is my best friend and my emotional backbone.”

In 2018 Moira received another blow when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following a lumpectomy, she began chemo. Not long after her first treatment, Mac, then 27 and a professional drummer and composer who’d studied music at the University of Southern California, underwent an MRI because of persistent pain in his tailbone.

Sinise and his son Mac with the Lt. Dan Band in 2010Credit: Courtesy Gary Sinise Foundation

Mac learned he had chordoma, a bone cancer that affects only 300 people in the U.S. per year. Moira was declared cancer-free after eight chemo and 35 radiation sessions, but over the next five years, tumors ravaged Mac’s body.

“His chest looked like rocks were pressing out from beneath his skin,” Sinise writes in his book. Nerve damage from tumors and surgeries put Mac in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down. And yet, “he was such a light,” says Sophie. “He made you feel better when you walked in the room.”

Just as Moira and Mac were both needing care, Sophie, a hairstylist, had started her family (both daughters now have three children each, ranging in age from 9 months to 9 years old), and Ella had begun a teaching career in Washington, D.C. So Sinise was back and forth to hospitals and doctor appointments. “A good day meant I didn’t need to take Mac or Moira to the emergency room,” he writes. At more than one point, the two even ended up in the same hospital at the same time.

Meanwhile, the actor was filming the Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why — and continuing to show up for events for veterans and first responders with his Gary Sinise Foundation. “He was like the man at the circus juggling plates,” says Moira, who tears up thinking of how she was often too ill herself to take care of Mac: “All I wanted to do was hold him, and I couldn’t.”

After 13 Reasons ended in 2020, Sinise decided to step away from acting. “Family was the priority,” he says. “One of the blessings is that I had succeeded in Hollywood, and I could afford to be there for my family 24/7.”

Sinise threw himself into caregiving, taking the night shift to change his son’s catheter, helping him eat, lifting him in and out of his wheelchair. And he became chief chordoma researcher, searching for a cure. “Mac tried 25 different drugs over a four-and-a-half year period,” Sinise says. “I never lost hope that we were going to hit the sweet spot.” He drew strength from families of wounded warriors he’d met through his foundation. “I’ve seen pretty banged-up folks over the years, and I’ve seen how families have dealt with somebody paralyzed from the neck down, blind or burned from head to toe. Watching them live with courage prepared me to be a better caregiver and a better dad.”

As Mac lost his ability to move, he gave away his car, his surfboard and a treasured drum set to friends. “His body was just destroyed,” says Ella, who at one point took leave from her job to be with him. “But sick Mac was still a beautiful person. He didn’t let it stop him.” He went to Mass, learned to play the harmonica, watched Cubs games with his mom and prayed with her, sometimes side by side in their wheelchairs. “This is your silver lining,” he told Moira. “We’re able to be together, talk to each other and cry together.”

Gary and Mac Sinise in November 2023 at Ocean Way Studios in NashvilleCredit: Courtesy Gary Sinise Foundation

Sinise says he told his son he reminded him of the hero soldier in the film 1917 “running through the battlefield, bombs knocking you down, and you’re still getting back up,” he says. “We didn’t get the miracle we were all praying for, but there were other miracles, like the way Mac lived his life. He sure showed us grace under fire.”

On Jan. 5, 2024, Mac’s body finally gave out. “We surrounded him when he took his last breath,” says Sophie. “As incredibly hard as it was, we got a glimpse into eternal life. And the gifts keep unfolding. You feel his presence everywhere.”

Gary SiniseCredit:Jim Wright

In the years since Mac’s passing, the family has found treasures he left behind. Rosaries, letters for each of them — and music he composed. Sinise has released a series of albums of Mac’s compositions called Resurrection & Revival, with proceeds from sales going toward his foundation, per his son’s wishes.

At his home outside Nashville, he likes to blast Mac’s music on his new outdoor sound system, “for the whole neighborhood to hear!” says Ella. Sinise and Moira moved from California with Mac months before he died, after Sophie, Ella and their families had already transitioned to Tennessee, which Sinise chose as a new home for his foundation because of the state’s proximity to military bases and its lack of income tax. With no acting income, Sinise says, he has to watch his budget.

On a recent weekend all six grandkids were at Papa and Nana’s house for a barbecue, pool party and “nonstop ice cream,” Sophie notes, as Mac’s music played. “For me and my wife, it’s the best times when all the kids are there. And Mac is always with us.”

Sinise admits he sometimes misses acting, but between his foundation and his family, “I wouldn’t want to leave. I want to be around my wife. I want to be with my grandkids. We are happy grandparents.” Finding that joy together after their loss is, he says, another way to honor Mac: “He wouldn’t want us to be curled up in a ball in the corner. He wouldn’t want us to fall apart. He wanted us to be strong and to continue to live.”

PEOPLE VIPs can read our full conversation with Gary Sinise and his family in this week’s issue, available right now in the app.

Source: Entertainment