Rumer Willis’s Post About Her Dad Bruce Is So Heartbreaking

As the Willis family copes with action star Bruce Willis’s frontotemporal dementia and aphasia, which severely limits his ability to understand or communicate, his daughter Rumer Willis is sharing a feeling we can all understand: She misses her dad.

“Really missing my papa today. ” she wrote on Instagram alongside a picture of her dad holding her as a baby. As commenters have noted, Rumer, who lives in Los Angeles and could hypothetically visit her dad, may be missing the relationship they used to have. In the picture he is talking to her, holding her, and caring for her, all of which he can no longer do. Bruce is alive, but in some ways it is as if he is gone, as their father-daughter bond is no longer so easily accessible.

From what they’ve shared, it seems Bruce’s family is still trying to make the most of their time together. Demi Moore, his ex-wife and mother of their three daughters, Tallulah, Rumer, and Scout, even joined in on the celebration for his birthday in March.

Clearly, all of Bruce’s daughters love him very much (he also shares Evelyn and Mabel with wife Emma Heming, though the girls are too young to have public social media accounts). As Scout wrote in a touching Father’s Day post over the summer, “Sending the blessing of this love out to everyone today. I feel so lucky to know the kind of tenderness that this man shares, the deep admiration, respect and reverence he has for his family. I feel so lucky that this incredible, vibrant, man is my father. Thinking of everyone for whom today has been challenging and I am loving you with the deepest depths of my heart! What patience, compassion and presence we learn through the greatest challenges in our lives.”