Ryan Reynolds found solace in sending his estranged father a heartfelt letter before his death at age 74.
Despite having a troubled relationship over the years, the 47-year-old Deadpool and Wolverine star revealed that he wrote “basically a list of every awesome thing he’s ever done” and mailed it to his father, James “Jim” Reynolds.
“I sent a letter to my dad probably about five months before he passed away, and I’m so grateful that I did,” said the actor, who lost his father to Parkinson’s disease. People.
Vancouver explained that the letter “was basically a list of all the amazing things he’d done. Every time he’d show up or every time he’d play with me outside after baseball practice” and just “every time he was just there.”
Reynolds went on to say that he now understands that it was difficult for his father to “express his emotions in a dynamic way; well, a lot of people can’t.”
“The boy was born in the 40s. That’s fine. So I’m very grateful that I sent that letter,” he said.
Ryan Reynolds has opened up about the closure he received in the months leading up to his late father’s death (pictured in New York City on August 6)
“I know for a fact that it meant a lot to him, and it goes back to my earliest memories to the present day or as close to the present day as possible,” explained the father of four, who is married to actress Blake Lively.
“I was able to close that loop, but I wasn’t with him when he passed away, and I really wish I had been,” she said.
In an interview with Willie Geist in TodayThe FI star recalled that her father suffered from little-known symptoms that affect about half of all Parkinson’s patients: delusions and hallucinations.
“I framed it as, ‘Oh, he’s losing his mind,'” Reynolds explained. “If I had known, I think I would have handled it better.”
“I think I would have been a much more patient person. I think my father would have felt a lot less alone.”
Jim Reynolds died in 2015 after a 20-year battle with the disease.
Before his death, Jim was able to meet the Reynolds’ eldest daughter, James, who was named after her grandfather.
“I love that she got to meet him,” the Welcome to Wrexham star said.
The actor wrote his father, Jim Reynolds, a thank-you letter about five months before he died after a 20-year battle with Parkinson’s disease in 2015. “I know for a fact that it meant a lot to him,” he explained. (Pictured with his parents Tammy and Jim Reynolds in Los Angeles in November 2005)
Reynolds and his wife Blake Lively, 36, named their eldest daughter James after her grandfather and got to meet her namesake before his passing. “I love that she got to meet him,” the Welcome to Wrexham star told Willie Geist on Today
The actor and his mother, Tammy, have partnered with the More to Parkinson’s group and Acadia Pharmaceuticals to draw attention to little-known symptoms, including delusions and hallucinations (pictured in Los Angeles in November 2005).
He shares with his wife, 36, James, nine, Inez, seven, Betty, four, and son, Olin, one.
“His granddaughters would have really changed him,” the actor predicted.
Reynolds serves on the board of directors of the Michael J. Fox Foundation and has joined forces with More to Parkinson’s and Acadia Pharmaceuticals to raise awareness about these lesser-known signs of Parkinson’s disease.
“I wish the resources that are available now to treat that part of Parkinson’s existed, or at least we would have known about it then, because it really would have given a lot of hope,” she said (pictured in New York City in June).
“My dad was really falling down a rabbit hole where he was struggling to differentiate between reality and fiction,” she told People.
“I wish that the resources that are available now to treat that part of Parkinson’s existed, or at least that we knew about it then, because it really would have given a lot of hope.”