Actor Bruce Willis’ wife says their 9-year-old daughter Evelyn recently taught her a valuable lesson about her husband’s progressive illness – frontotemporal dementia.
Emma Heming Willis described the exchange in a video she shared on Instagram, along with the following caption attributed to Speech Language Pathologist and Certified Dementia Practitioner Adria Thompson:
“‘On behalf of the person you’re caring for that has dementia, whether they can express it or not — I want to say thank you. Thank you for loving them, thank you for spending time to educate yourself about dementia. Because that is the most compassionate thing that you can do by having more insight into their world and the life they are experiencing that they can’t always express.'”
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The “Die Hard” actor’s wife prefaced the anecdote with a warning that she might cry while explaining what had happened. “So I have to tell you this story and I’m going to try to do it without crying, because when Evelyn told me this story I was an absolute puddle,” she said.
“So Evelyn says to me the other day, ‘Did you know that people with dementia can become severely dehydrated?’ I said, ‘I didn’t know that, but how do you know that?’ She says, ‘I was at school the other day and I had some free time and I was looking up fun facts about dementia,'” Willis continued.
She went on to note that it wasn’t surprising to see Evelyn come up with something like that, saying that the 9-year-old and her father both shared a penchant for random trivia.
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“Now, that’s not funny, but it’s kind of funny and she really is her father’s child because these two love some random facts. So I said to her, I said, ‘Okay, Evelyn, we will always make sure daddy has a bottle of water in hand, thank you for letting me know.’ I said, ‘That is the most loving and compassionate thing you can do, is to be curious and educate yourself on your dad’s disease,'” she added.
“So keep educating yourself, stay curious and remember to hydrate your loved ones,” Willis advised as the video ended.