It’s been an emotional few days for the Willis family, with the celebration of Bruce’s 68th birthday on Sunday 19th March, followed by his 14th wedding anniversary to Emma Heming Willis on 20th.
Although happy milestones, celebrating them as the caregiver for someone with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) can bring up an overwhelming grief and sadness too.
Emma Heming Willis, who is also her husbands caregiver, has opened up about how emotional it can be when milestones like this occur, sharing her thoughts in a series of Instagram stories and posts.
On Tuesday, March 21, Heming Willis shared a picture of a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, and in the caption, she revealed how she got them.
“Today marks 14 years of marriage to the greatest love of my life,” she wrote. “I woke with my heart full but what my mind kept going back to was another person’s act of kindness yesterday I wanted to share as it inspired the heck out of me.”
“In passing at a school event for our children, I mentioned to my friend that our anniversary was tomorrow. Cut to, I get a text from my friend later that day that said she left ‘a little something’ for me at my door,” Heming Willis continued. “It was this sweet bouquet of flowers (pictured) with a note that said Happy Anniversary amongst other things.”
She wrote: “When usually our person would acknowledge the event, now their changing brains just can’t. And that is what it is.”
“So my point is this,” she continued. “If you know someone that is looking after someone else, don’t ask what you can do, just do. This random act of kindness will honestly stay with me for a long time. I love you Juliya. You singlehandedly made this day special for us 💐💞.”
She also shared a post throwing it back to her and Bruce’s 10th wedding anniversary, where they decided to renew their vows in the same place they got married.
”On our 10th wedding anniversary we decided to renew our vows in the same place we said “I do” back in 2009,” she wrote.
”I’m so happy we did. Seize every opportunity to unite and celebrate with family and friends. Those are the moments and beautiful pockets of memories that you get to hold on to for a lifetime. And we get to keep those memories safe and alive for the ones that might not be able to 💌”
