Katherine Heigl Pays Tribute to “Grey’s Anatomy” Costar Eric Dane in Emotional Message: ‘I Debated This Post for Days’

NEED TO KNOW

• Katherine Heigl shared an emotional tribute to the late Eric Dane, her former Grey’s Anatomy costar

• Heigl, 47, shared the tribute on Instagram on Feb. 22.

• Dane died of complications from ALS on Feb. 19, 10 months after revealing he had been diagnosed with the disease

Katherine Heigl shared a raw, emotional tribute to her former Grey’s Anatomy costar, the late Eric Dane.

Heigl shared the tribute, which features a throwback photo of the two at a film premiere in 2006, on Instagram on Sunday, Feb. 22 — just days after Dane died of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease, at age 53 on Thursday, Feb. 19.

“I debated this post for days,” Heigl, 47, began in the caption of the post.

“I have never been comfortable grieving publicly. I share my tears, my stories and my memories with those I’m closest to and more times than not I share them only with the heavens alone. But that silence can often look like a lack of care which I could not abide here,” she continued.

She then addressed Dane’s ex and primary caretaker, Rebecca Gayheart, 54, as well as the pair’s daughters, Billie Beatrice, 15, and Georgia Geraldine, 13.

“Rebecca, Billie, Georgia… There is so little, if in fact anything, one can say about a tragic loss like yours. All the ‘I’m sorries’ and ‘ my prayers are with you’ ring a bit hollow in the midst of so much pain and grief. So I will say the only thing that has ever brought me peace when I’ve lost someone I love,” she wrote.

Heigl went on to share words from Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” which she said she has tattooed on her body in her parents’ handwriting “so I will never forget that the moment of gold was worth it.”

Heigl quoted Frost: “Natures first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; but only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, so Dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.”

The actress concluded her post, “I will never forget Eric’s gold and I will forever be grateful I got to bask in it for even a brief moment in time. Thank you for sharing him with us. God Speed my old friend…here’s to your next great adventure.”

Heigl is one of a number of Dane’s former Grey’s costars who have spoken out about their grief over losing the star this week — 10 months after Dane announced he had been diagnosed with the disease.

“The last 48 hours have been devastating,” Grey’s actress Chyler Leigh, 43, wrote in a statement to E! News. “I never thought I would be using the term ‘had or was,’ but here we are. And I hate it.”

Leigh continued, “Eric had a heart of gold. His humor and, especially, his laugh was infectious. He was a deeply intelligent man who could carry a philosophical conversation for hours even while we were on set.”

Patrick Dempsey, who also starred alongside Dane on the hit ABC medical drama, spoke candidly about how he wants to remember his late costar during an appearance on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show.

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“I feel really so sad for his children,” Dempsey, 60, said. “I was corresponding with him, we were texting, so I spoke to him about a week ago, and some friends of ours went in to see him, and he was really starting to lose his ability to speak.”

“He was the funniest man — he was such a joy to work with, and I want to just remember him in that spirit because any time he was on set, he brought so much fun to it,” he added.

“There was just this wonderful mutual respect,” he said of their connection.

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