Widow of Young Dad-to-Be Who Died of Rare Cancer Says Their Newborn Daughter 'Keeps Him Alive'
Graziella "Gracie" Robertson had her first child on July 4, a baby girl named Mattie Juliette. But alongside the joy of becoming a mom, she carried the grief of losing her husband just one month before.
Matthew Robertson died from epithelioid angiosarcoma, a rare cancer affecting the blood vessels. He died just three weeks after his first ER visit, and she says it's been "a roller coaster of emotions."
"I'm not losing sleep because of the baby — it's just impossible to sleep with the grief that I'm experiencing," Gracie, 30, says over Zoom, days after doing a PEOPLE photoshoot with Mattie, her parents, and her in-laws in her backyard. "So that's what's causing me to be so exhausted as opposed to the baby. I keep saying that at the end of the day, I would much rather be new-mom tired instead of new-widow tired."
What's been getting her through the days has been her daughter, whom she named after Matthew and says is his "clone."
"She looks exactly like him, and I'm so happy that I get to always have a piece of him with me," she says. "Looking at her and even just saying Mattie every day keeps him alive for me."
Sarah Bode-Clark Gracie and Mattie Robertson
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When the couple first found out they were pregnant with Mattie shortly after getting married in September 2021, Gracie says Matthew would always say how "excited" he was for the baby to be born.
"Every time I'm holding her, I wish he could feel how soft her skin is. Every time I kiss her, I think, 'I wish he could kiss her, and I wish she could feel his kisses.' I think what's hard for me is enjoying the things that he should also be enjoying, but I'm trying to live for him. I wouldn't say guilty is the word, but it's hard. It's hard enjoying things that I know that he should be enjoying too."
Sarah Bode-Clark Gracie Robertson, her parents and in-laws
It's been a whirlwind for Gracie ever since Matthew first started to feel like something was off with his health in May, just weeks before her July 12 due date. After complaining of tiredness and back pain, Matthew's bloodwork taken during a routine physical came back showing elevated liver enzymes and an elevated white blood cell count.
In the days after his doctor visit, Matthew started having night sweats, and he kept feeling more and more tired. One morning, he woke up and said he wanted to go to the ER.
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After undergoing several tests, doctors found lesions on Matthew's liver, spleen and back, but they still didn't have a diagnosis. So at the recommendation of a specialist, he also underwent a liver biopsy.
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As they awaited the results from the biopsy at home, Matthew kept getting weaker, and on May 31, Gracie decided to take him back to the ER as he was no longer eating or drinking. Eventually, he was intubated.
When the results from his liver biopsy came back, he was diagnosed with epithelioid angiosarcoma, which often originates in deep tissue.
"Sarcoma means fleshy growth, and angio means blood vessels," Dr. Charles A. Forscher, MD, medical director of the sarcoma program at Cedars-Sinai Cancer in Los Angeles, previously told PEOPLE. "So an angiosarcoma is a malignant tumor, or cancer, that's trying to be a blood vessel, but it's malignant, so it's not doing it right."
Dr. Forscher, who did not treat Matthew, said that epithelioid angiosarcoma is "extraordinarily rare."
"Sarcomas make up one percent of tumors in people," he said. "There are about 15,000 soft tissue sarcomas a year in the United States, and angiosarcomas are maybe around two or three percent of that."
While there are chemotherapy drugs that have been utilized to treat angiosarcomas, the benefits tend to be "short lived," said Dr. Forscher.
"These tumors can be highly aggressive," he said. "The ones that are in the organs tend to not [respond to treatment]."
Courtesy of Fragale-Robertson Family Gracie and Matthew Robertson
Given the dire prognosis, doctors recommended taking Matthew off the breathing machine, and Gracie agreed. He took his last breath on June 6.
Just a month after Matthew's death, Gracie welcomed their daughter, eight days before her due date.
"I really wanted her to come on July 12 because Matt's birthday is January 12, and I wanted her to share that day," she says. "But on July 3, I had my aunts and uncle and my parents over for a quick barbecue, and we were talking about the different types of foods that will put you into labor. I said, 'Eh, she's not coming anytime soon. We've got time.' Later I started feeling a little crampy, but didn't really think much of it. Then around 2 a.m. I started going into what I didn't know was labor."
"I'm very lucky that I had a very quick and easy labor with her," she continues. "I ended up having a natural birth, so I didn't have an epidural or anything, and I really feel like Matt got me through that."
Sarah Bode-Clark Gracie Robertson
The whole time she was in labor, Gracie says she "talked to" Matthew and "felt like" he was there with her.
"I just really felt his presence with me the entire time," she says. "I was surrounded by pictures of us and of him and anytime I had to push or I had a contraction, I just looked at him and I kept talking to him and saying, 'Please give me the strength. Please, I need to feel you here.' My mom took a video of one of the last pushes, and you see me holding onto his picture and looking at him and really soaking him in in that moment. I got to say, I 110% felt him there with me. It was bittersweet because he obviously wasn't there physically, but I felt him emotionally and spiritually."
After the birth itself, Gracie's next hurdle was taking Mattie home.
"It was hard taking her home because I saw other dads carrying their babies out in the car seats," Gracie says. "It makes me sad that I'm never going to have that, and Maddie's never going to have that. I think the most important thing for me and for her is just to keep his spirit alive. She's going to know all about her dad."
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Recently, Gracie says, she started writing a journal of letters to Mattie.
"I write about how I'm feeling that day, and I'm honest if I'm having a hard day," she says. "Then, if a happy memory comes to mind, I write it down."
The happy memories have so far included memorable date nights, inside jokes and even their go-to grocery list. "Matt was always very picky, and he always needed a ton of honey crisp apples," Gracie says with a laugh.
Matthew's parents, Cathy and Tommie, add that whenever he picked them up from the airport, he had "an apple and water bottle waiting" in the car for his dad. "He was very thoughtful and considerate," they say. "Family was very important to Matt."
Sarah Bode-Clark Gracie Robertson
While Gracie wants to "remain positive" for Mattie, she also doesn't want her to think that she never struggled.
"I want her to know that this was really, really hard," she says. "I also want her to know about our relationship and that, no, it wasn't perfect. I think it's important for her to know that we had fights, but we always got through it at the end of the day because there was so much love."
Even after an argument, Gracie says she and Matthew never went to bed angry.
"We had this nighttime ritual where we always give each other four good-night kisses," she says. "Three was our standard, and then it was always one for the road. We called them nighties. Even if I was angry, he'd be like, 'You have to give me nighties. You have to.' There was always so much love there, so much respect, and I want her to know about all of that. I want her to know how caring and loving, kind, generous and sensitive her dad was ... and stubborn! But at the end of the day he just had so much love and the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met in my life."
Matthew's parents say that prior to his death, Matthew — whom they describe as a loyal friend, good athlete, talented drummer and a respected colleague in the business world — "had everything going for him."
"He met Gracie shortly after relocating from Nebraska to New York City, and they had a beautiful, storybook wedding," they say. "He made fast friends and loved Gracie's family. He and Gracie have a lovely home and great neighbors on Long Island. He was enjoying his new job. He was excited to become a girl-daddy! Matt was a son to be proud of."
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Gracie says she's been thinking a lot about how she wants to spend their one-year wedding anniversary.
"The day after our wedding, Matt's mom wrapped our cake super well and froze it, and I was thinking in my sad and bitter stage, 'Do I just throw it out? Does it mean anything anymore?' " she says. "But I try to think about how we would've celebrated if he was here, and I think we would've gone out to dinner and then had everybody over, all my siblings and my parents, to taste the cake together and how horribly freezer burned it is. I think we all would've celebrated together, and as hard as it's going to be, I'm trying to do right by him."
"I know that the last thing he would want me to do is close my door and sleep the day away in my room with all of the curtains closed, even though that's what I do want to do," she continues. "I think at the minimum I'll eat a bite of the cake and talk about the day with my family. I'll see how I'm feeling and maybe watch our video or look through our pictures, because he loved our wedding pictures."
Photography by Alfonso Matthew and Gracie Robertson
Earlier this month, Gracie says that after a few weeks of holding off, she took Mattie to visit her dad at the cemetery for the first time.
"My sister Angela dropped me off, and I just sat there with Mattie and cried and talked to Matt," she says. "I hated that I had to take my one month old there to visit daddy. I hated that he couldn't hold her. I hated that when she started crying, I couldn't pass her to him and have him comfort her. The whole thing just felt so surreal, like this can't be my reality now."
Courtesy of Fragale-Robertson Family Matthew Robertson and Gracie Fragale
As she works through her grief, Gracie says she's been trying to find some humor in her every day. Days after their first visit to the cemetery, Gracie and Mattie went back again with Matthew's parents, who were in town to meet their granddaughter for the first time. There, they had a surprisingly funny moment.
"Of course it was emotional, but when we were there, Mattie had a big blowout diaper, and I said, 'All right, Matt, come on, it's your turn. You have to be doing this. It can't be me all the time,'" she says with a laugh. "I try to laugh and not be so grim all the time, because I know he would be making jokes and teasing me. I got to keep that spirit alive too."
During their visit, Matthew's parents were able to join Gracie, her parents Peter and Cristina and Mattie on the set of their PEOPLE photoshoot in her yard, which is full of little reminders of Matthew, from the bench that Gracie's sister Angela gifted her in memory of him, to the fig tree that he had planted before his death.
"Matt truly appreciated and fully indoctrinated himself into our culture and traditions," say Gracie's parents. "Like every other Italian American in NYC, Matt insisted that he too needed a Fig tree in his backyard. So last year he planted a cutting from our garden and it has now blossomed and is actually sprouting a dozen figs. This is but one of many memories that Matt has left us because he was so much part of our every day life."
Adds Gracie: "I think the most also important takeaway from the photo shoot that day was just how grateful I am to have the support of both of my families, my in-laws and my blood family. It's so hard to say that I feel lucky or blessed because I definitely don't feel like that losing my husband at 30 from a one-in-a-million cancer. But all things considered, I feel very blessed with my family."
Courtesy of Fragale-Robertson Family
Gracie says she also feels lucky for the outpouring of support she's gotten from people across the country since first sharing her and Matthew's story with PEOPLE in June.
"I had so many people who reached out to me over Facebook or Instagram saying, 'You don't know me, but I read your article in PEOPLE, and I just have to tell you how much it resonated with me,'" she says. "One of the women who reached out to me, her husband also passed away when their twins were about a year old, and we've been talking. I go to her for advice when I have tough days, which I have so many of. Knowing that people care and that there are good, kind people in this world really means a lot."
Along with talking to people who reached out to her about her story, Gracie has joined some support groups and is focused on raising awareness about angiosarcomas.
"I'm hoping that eventually, in my lifetime, that an angiosarcoma isn't a death sentence. For Matt, it wasn't detected until the day he passed, but I have faith that if we continue raising awareness that the funding will be there."
Photography by Alfonso Matthew and Gracie Robertson
In the meantime, Gracie is going to continue to take things "second by second, minute by minute."
"When people ask to come over, I say, 'Yes and maybe no. Yes, you can come over and meet the baby, but either, one, I'll let you know I'm not feeling it that day or, two, you have to be prepared that I may leave you with the baby and need to take a second for myself, or I may need to take the baby with me and just hold her and cry.'" she says. "But like I said, everybody's so supportive and sensitive to my needs at this time."
When Mattie gets older, Gracie wants her daughter to know that while she brings her so much "happiness," but she's also not "responsible for it."
"I never want her to think that she can't grow and be the person that she's meant to be because she needs to take care of me or make sure I'm happy," she says. "I want her to be an independent, strong, adventurous woman. That's very important to me."
