Emma Heming Willis shares how her family plans to adapt their holiday celebrations as Bruce Willis faces his battle with dementia.
This holiday season, Bruce Willis is surrounded by affection. Emma Heming Willis, the wife of the Sixth Sense star, revealed how their family is making sure he continues to play a major role in their celebrations despite his ongoing struggle with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
“You have to learn and adapt and make new memories, bring in the same traditions that you had before,” in an interview published on November 27, she tells People. “Life goes on. It just goes on.”
In fact, three years after the 70-year-old's diagnosis, his loved ones—including his and Emma's daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, as well as his adult children Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 31, with ex-wife Demi Moore—are attempting to find hope despite his difficulties, particularly during this season.
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“Dementia is hard, but there is still joy in it,” Emma went on. “I think it's important that we don't paint such a negative picture around dementia. We are still laughing. There is still joy. It just looks different.”
After all, the model pointed out that Bruce, whom she married in 2009, has always brought her joy on Yuletide.
“Bruce loved Christmas and we love celebrating it with him,” she clarified. “It just looks different, so we've adapted to that.”
Emma revealed last month how her and Bruce's young daughters are coping with their father's illness, acknowledging that it is "tough for them" to deal with their father "missing important milestones."
“But kids are resilient,” at that point, she informed Vogue Australia. “I used to hate hearing that because people didn’t understand what we were walking through. I don’t know if my kids will ever bounce back. But they’re learning, and so am I.”
In a similar vein, Rumer recently discussed the positive aspects of her father's illness.
“I'm so happy and grateful that I still get to go and hug him,” on November 20, she posted a clip to her Instagram Stories. "I'm so grateful that when I go over there and give him a hug, whether he recognizes me or not, that he can feel the love I've given him, and I can feel it back from him. That I still see a spark of him, and he can feel the love that I'm giving, and so that feels really nice.”
