- - Bruce Willis' wife Emma Heming Willis opens up about holiday 'grief'

Brendan Morrow, USA TODAYDecember 23, 2025 at 5:05 AM

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Emma Heming Willis has penned a powerful essay about the grief that comes with celebrating the holiday season amid her husband Bruce Willis' dementia battle.

In a post on her website, titled "The Holidays Look Different Now," Heming Willis, 47, opened up about living through what she described as a "web of grief" during the holidays.

"For me, the holidays carry memories of Bruce being at the center of it all," she wrote. "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. There was comfort in the routine of knowing exactly how the day would go, especially since I'm a creature of habit. Dementia doesn't erase those memories. But it does create space between then and now. And that space can ache."

Emma Heming Willis attends Carefest 2025 at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice on Nov. 19, 2025, in New York City.

Heming Willis went on to share that she finds herself "cursing Bruce's name while wrestling with the holiday lights or taking on tasks that used to be his," not because she is mad at him but "because I miss the way he once led the holiday charge."

Emma Heming Willis, Bruce Willis, my dad and me

But, she added, "You can miss what was and still show up for what is."

Bruce Willis has been retired from acting since 2022 as he battles frontotemporal dementia. According to the Mayo Clinic, frontotemporal dementia, also known as FTD, affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain and can lead to personality changes and a loss of speech.

Bruce Willis and Emma Heming Willis attend the New York Film Festival on Oct. 11, 2019, in New York City.

Earlier this year, Heming Willis shared during an ABC special that the "Die Hard" actor is living in a separate home with professional caregivers. She said moving him to a new home was "one of the hardest decisions" she has had to make but said that she "knew, first and foremost, Bruce would want that for our daughters. You know, he would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs."

Bruce and Emma Heming Willis share two children: Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11. The actor also has three adult children from his marriage to Demi Moore: Rumer, 37; Scout, 34; and Tallulah, 31.

Emma Heming Willis says husband Bruce Willis 'on stable ground'

Heming Willis has written frequently about her caregiving journey and in September published a book, titled "The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path."

In her new essay, she reflected on how she wanted "the holidays to remain exactly as they were" for a long time, but now accepts the fact that "life is unfolding differently now."

"This holiday season, our family will still unwrap gifts and sit together at breakfast," she wrote. "But instead of Bruce making our favorite pancakes, I will. And no, I can't share the secret family recipe. We'll put on a holiday movie. There will be laughter and cuddles. And there will almost certainly be tears because we can grieve and make room for joy. The joy doesn't cancel out the sadness. The sadness doesn't cancel out the joy. They coexist."

She concluded that she holds the "ache of what dementia has taken from us while we trim the tree and the gratitude that we're still together celebrating," and she holds "the memories of Bruce as the man who once carried this season for our family, and I hold the reality of who he is now, with the same love."

In a conversation with USA TODAY earlier this year, Heming Willis said that with a care team in place for her husband, "right now, we're on stable ground."

Contributing: Jay Stahl and David Oliver, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bruce Willis' wife writes about feeling 'grief' during holidays

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