Bruce Willis and my father shared an aphasia diagnosis The eerie simultaneous diagnoses
I first saw “aphasia” in action while watching a Season 3 episode of my favorite show, “Grey’s Anatomy.” A man came out of surgery and neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) asked him to identify the object in front of him. He struggled saying the word for cup. He couldn’t even say his wife’s name; his infant son’s name.
I grew angry at his wife for losing patience. Surely, if I were ever in this situation, I would be patient and calm and look into my loved one’s eyes and will them to say my name, invoking some kind of Destiny’s Child mind trick.
But 15 years later, I did lose patience. How couldn’t I, when my dad looked me in the eye on a sunny April day in Heistein Park in Randolph, New Jersey, minutes from my childhood home, where we’d spent countless hours together talking about nothing and everything, and he couldn’t say the word I yearned for. Ached for. “Day-vid.” Two syllables never felt more important.
Bruce Willis’ children, I imagine, felt (and feel) the same way. Because around the time my father, Mark Oliver, got sick with aphasia, so did theirs. A family so different than mine – my dad a devoted doctor, Willis a prolific actor – but maybe not so different at all. A loving father slips away from his children without giving them time to process. To breathe. To, well, say anything.
My dad’s aphasia – damage to the parts of the brain involving language – began the previous month. Instead of “I’m going for a drive,” “I’m going for a car.” It only got worse from there, as wrong words gave way to gibberish, then blank stares and sighs.
I remember the day at work when the Willis news broke. 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.’ ”
Aphasia. Aphasia. Aphasia.
A word that hadn’t crept into my mind since I’d last watched that “Grey’s Anatomy” episode was following me. Like a lost dog looking for its owner. Like a lovesick teen who won’t stop DMing their crush. Like a –
“Ok, eerie,” I messaged my editor with a link to the article. “Sort of what’s going on with my dad.” A few days later I told her of my family: “The Bruce Willis timing has us all weirded out.”
Their paths deviated. Willis is still alive as of this writing. My dad died seven weeks after the aphasia began.
The haunting, lingering connection
Almost a year later, Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. “Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces,” his daughter Rumer Willis wrote in an Instagram post at the time. “While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis.” About 50,000 to 60,000 people have frontotemporal dementia in the U.S.; it causes personality changes, can lead to speech problems and is incurable. People live for about 7 to 13 years after symptoms start.
My dad had Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease – a one-in-a-million kind of illness that is always fatal and typically kills people within a year of onset.
In my haze of grief – and the 18 months 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.
How’s his family doing? If they’re anything like us, they find some silver lining amid the tragedy. I’m glad to see dancing has helped them, because it certainly helped us.
I also know that no social media post could comprehensively capture the painful, petrifying moments. I wish I could offer words of comfort to the Willis children. To tell them to cherish the time they have with him, to remember that he’s still their dad, despite whatever is going on inside his brain. To know it’s OK if they want his suffering to stop, even if it means saying goodbye sooner than they imagined.
I wish I could say things will get easier 18 months later.
But nothing gets easier. It just changes. I still can’t call him after I score my bocce ball team the winning points at our most recent game.
I still can’t see his face when my story makes the front page of the newspaper. I still can’t tell him I love him.
Not the way I want to, anyway. To run toward him, wrap my arms around him and not say a word.
Still, I’ve danced, sang, told my loved ones all the things I want to tell him.
I’m writing down his story, too, in essays like these. It’s not the same, but it’s the new normal I’m making.
I wish I could offer words of comfort to the Willis children. To tell them to cherish the time they have with him, to remember that he’s still their dad.