Bruce Willis’ family announced several years ago the actor was retiring from the acting profession.
Mark Oliver (left) with his son David Oliver (right).

The second Emma Heming Willis popped up on the Zoom screen, a wave of grief washed over me. A sudden sensation all too familiar.

"I've thought about you and your family a lot in the last couple of years," I explained. "My dad was diagnosed with aphasia right around the time that Bruce was." I was, of course, talking about her husband, actor Bruce Willis. The family later revealed he had frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. My dad suffered from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, another neurodegenerative illness. He died seven weeks after that initial aphasia diagnosis. Bruce Willis is still alive, his family and a caregiving team by his side at all hours.

I'm not always this candid with my interview subjects. But when topics affect my personal life, I believe connection between two humans usurps any attempt at impartiality. By letting her know I walked a similar path she's navigating, we could have a more meaningful, moving conversation. And we did.

"I don't want this life," she told me, her anger and compassion sprouting out my computer's speaker, "I want to go back to our old life. I want to go back to a life where my husband is, well, he's working. He is in the world, I want our children to be able to have their father back. I want us to be in our home. I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want any of this, but this is just what it is."

This is just what it is. I know the feeling. That helplessness amid an unrelenting, unforgiving illness.

Bruce Willis sometimes acts like who he was

I remember the day at work when the Willis news broke back several years ago. I'm used to celebrities getting married, or breaking up, or getting sick or dying. It's part of the gig. We cover what happens. We are witnesses to history and tell people what happened in as nuanced a way as possible. At least we try to.

But nothing like this happened to me before. I read our story in March 2022 and the words screamed at me across the page: "Bruce Willis is stepping away from acting due to health issues … The 'Die Hard' and 'Pulp Fiction' actor 'has recently been diagnosed with aphasia – "

Their paths deviated from there.

In my haze of grief – and the nearly 3 1/2 years since – I've kept track of Bruce Willis from afar. Because in some ways, he feels like a surrogate for my dad. I can poke and prod through every social media post and wonder what kind of day he's having. Talking to Emma Heming Willis shed some further insight: Sometimes, Bruce, as he once was, sneaks up on them. "It's startling. Because sometimes I think, are you pretending? Are you joking? Have you been joking this whole time?" Then he returns to his FTD-afflicted self. Fleeting waves of normalcy in a sea of confusion. Just like my dad, too.

Bruce Willis' (and my dad's) legacy

After some well wishes, I closed out the Zoom box and paused. Took a breath. What a strange, heartbreaking and beautiful world. How is it possible to share so much in common with a stranger? Perhaps we all have more in common than we think.

I don't know when Bruce Willis is going to die. No one does. But if there's another message I can send to Heming Willis and the rest of his family, it's that your life will twist and turn in ways more than expected. The grief you're feeling now, and the grief you'll feel then, and the grief you'll feel after that won't follow a linear path. You'll fall to your knees. You'll scream into the abyss. You'll cry until your tear ducts dry up. But you'll also belly laugh. You'll smile wide. You'll forget, for a moment.

All of these feelings are OK. Because the person you love, that so many love, won't fade away like an old photograph. His memory will burn bright and beautiful long after he's gone. I can't promise much. But I promise you that.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Emma Heming Willis, Bruce Willis, my dad and me

Reporting by David Oliver, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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