Emma Heming Willis Opens Up About the Quiet Pain of the Holidays While Caring for Bruce Willis

Emma Heming Willis is sharing an honest and heartfelt look at how her family is navigating the holidays while caring for her husband, actor Bruce Willis, who is living with frontotemporal dementia.

In a recent blog post shared on Saturday, December 20, Heming Willis bravely opened up about how the holidays can be difficult.

“Before anything else, I want to say this, it’s okay to grieve. Grief doesn’t only belong to death,” she wrote. “It belongs to change and the ambiguous loss caregivers know so well. It belongs to the realization that things won’t unfold the way they once did.”

Heming Willis Remembers Sweet Memories of Prior Holidays

She went on to remember some of the sweet moments she shared with Willis in the past.

“He loved this time of year- the energy, family time, the traditions. He was the pancake-maker, the get-out-in-the-snow-with-the-kids guy, the steady presence moving through the house as the day unfolded,” Heming Willis wrote.

She added that while dementia will not erase those memories that were shared, she sometimes aches for their previous holiday traditions.

The 47-year-old added how grief can should up in different ways throughout the season. 

“It can arrive while pulling decorations out of storage, wrapping gifts or hearing a familiar song. It can catch you off guard in the middle of a room full of people, or in the quiet moment when everyone else has gone to bed,” she added.

Heming Willis Says Holidays Are Still Joyous

In a prior conversation with PEOPLE at the End Well 2025 conference in Los Angeles, she explained that while the festive season has its challenges, there’s still warmth, love and joy in the moments they create together — even if celebrations now look very different.

“It’s joyous. It’s just different,” Heming Willis said, reflecting on how Thanksgiving and Christmas have taken on a new meaning for their blended family. “Bruce loved Christmas and we love celebrating it with him. It just looks different, so we’ve kind of adapted to that.”

She emphasized that while the disease has changed the way they mark traditions, it hasn’t stripped the season of meaning.  

Holidays that once revolved around bustling celebrations now center on togetherness and simple pleasures that honor the Willis family’s deep bonds.

Heming Willis has spoken before about the importance of maintaining familiar traditions where possible — from decorating the tree to watching beloved films — while embracing the new rhythms that come with Willis’ health journey.

Willis, 70, was first diagnosed with aphasia in 2022, a condition that affects language and communication.

The family later revealed his condition had progressed to frontotemporal dementia, a more advanced form of cognitive decline that influences behavior, personality and daily functioning.

Throughout this journey, Heming Willis has taken on the role of caregiver while remaining a vocal advocate for dementia awareness.

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