Tallulah Willis has penned an emotional essay on her dad Bruce Willis’ dementia diagnosis. The deeply personal essay was published by Vogue, with the 29-year-old writing, “I keep flipping between the present and the past when I talk about Bruce: he is, he was, he is, he was. That’s because I have hopes for my father that I’m so reluctant to let go of.”
She later went on to add, “I’ve known that something was wrong for a long time. It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak up! Die Hard messed with Dad’s ears.’” Willis continued, “Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally. He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me. Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father.”
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Getting more candid about how she’s handled her father’s diagnosis, Willis confessed, “I admit that I have met Bruce’s decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial that I’m not proud of. The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it.” She explained, “I had managed to give my central dad-feeling canal an epidural; the good feelings weren’t really there, the bad feelings weren’t really there. But I remember a moment when it hit me painfully: I was at a wedding in the summer of 2021 on Martha’s Vineyard, and the bride’s father made a moving speech.”
Wills recalled, “Suddenly I realized that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating. I left the dinner table, stepped outside, and wept in the bushes.”
The Stars on Mars contestant eventually checked into a rehab facility which made her feel “a lot better” and equipped her with “the tools to be present in all facets of my life, and especially in my relationship with my dad.” She added, “I’m like an archaeologist, searching for treasure in stuff that I never used to pay much attention to. I find that I’m trying to document, to build a record for the day when he isn’t there to remind me of him and of us.”
Willis later offered, “In the past I was so afraid of being destroyed by sadness, but finally I feel that I can show up and be relied upon. I can savor that time, hold my dad’s hand, and feel that it’s wonderful. I know that trials are looming, that this is the beginning of grief, but that whole thing about loving yourself before you can love somebody else – it’s real.”
