Before Gene Hackman died, his wife, Betsy Arakawa, was the 95-year-old’s primary caregiver. Bruce Willis’ wife, Emma Heming, has been the “Die Hard” star’s primary caregiver since he stepped away from acting in March 2022.
The deaths of Arakawa and Hackman, one after the other over the course of a week or so in February, are why Heming is speaking out this week about the importance of caring for caregivers — and anyone who has ever cared for a sick loved one can relate to her message.
“There is some learning in this story in regards to this tragic passing of Mr. and Mrs. Hackman,” Heming said this week on social media. “It’s just made me think of this broader story, and that is that caregivers need care too and that they are vital and that it is so important that we show up for them so that they can continue to show up for their person.”
Heming didn’t mention her situation during her video, choosing instead to make it about the bigger picture. But the unspoken vibe was there. Bruce Willis left acting after he was diagnosed with aphasia and, a while later, with frontotemporal dementia.
“I think that there’s this common misconception that, like, caregivers, they got it figured out, they got it covered, they’re good. I don’t subscribe to that,” Heming said in her Monday video before repeating herself: “I think that we need to show up for them so they can continue to show up for their person.”
Arakawa, who was 30 years younger than Hackman, was given her due after her death by his daughter Leslie Anne Allen. “I give credit to his wife, Betsy, for keeping him alive,” she told a British outlet last week. “[Betsy] took very, very good care of him and was always looking out for his health.” The two-time Oscar-winning actor died of heart disease and advanced Alzheimer’s.
Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare but frequently fatal disease spread by rodents. Reports have said recently that she was seen wearing a mask — implying she was ill — when she ran errands the last time she was seen in public. Heming was struggling with a cold in a video posted Thursday. Getting sick more often, the Cleveland Clinic says, can be a sign of “caregiver burnout,” a real condition with symptoms similar to stress and depression.
Since it was recently National Caregivers Day, marked annually on the third Friday in February, Heming has been calling attention to those who care for people with Alzheimer’s, advanced multiple sclerosis, cancer, stroke, Parkinson’s and a host of other conditions that can render people unable to care for themselves.
“Caregiving takes a village, yet most are doing it alone. And let me tell you — it’s not sustainable,” she wrote Tuesday on social media. “Check in on caregivers. Show up for them. Without them, none of this works.”
On Feb. 21, she captioned a photo, “Caregivers don’t have the bandwidth to make another decision — so take it off their plate. Tell them what you can do. It will make all the difference.” In the message that ran with that caption, she wrote, “Let’s stop saying, ‘Let me know if there is anything I can do to help,’ and start saying, ‘Here’s how I can help.’ ”
In another video, Heming chided doctors for not lining up resources in advance so they are ready to help support patients and their families on the day a diagnosis is made.
“Doctors really need to have a road map of just some support, which is exactly the reason why I wrote my book, because I was handed a pamphlet. I was not handed one resource, and we’ve got to put put an end to that,” she said, referring to “The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path,” due out this September. Then she asked her followers to tell her what materials they had received from their doctors, and their wishes for information that wasn’t provided.
“The thing that just boggles my mind,” Heming said, “is how do our doctors not already have a Rolodex of how to support caregivers? So that is something that I can’t wait to dig into.”
