Something I’ll Carry Forever

Ryan Reynolds’ relationship with his father faced challenges as his father battled Parkinson’s disease. Diagnosed when Ryan was just 22, James Chester Reynolds, a former police officer, lived with the disease for nearly 20 years before passing away in 2015 at age 74. Despite the significant impact of Parkinson’s on their lives, Ryan reveals that his family rarely talked about it, mentioning he only heard his father speak of the disease maybe three times in his life.

According to the National Institute on Aging, Parkinson’s disease is “a brain disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements, such as shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and coordination. Symptoms usually begin gradually and worsen over time.” While there is no cure, medication can help manage some symptoms.

However, Ryan’s father experienced severe symptoms, including hallucinations and delusions, which are less commonly known effects of Parkinson’s. “It really destabilized my relationship with him because I didn’t really know what was happening,” Ryan told PEOPLE. Ryan is now involved in the educational campaign More to Parkinson’s, providing resources to patients and caregivers.

Ryan explained to PEOPLE that his father’s symptoms created a distance between them. “At the time, I just thought, ‘My dad’s losing his mind.’ My father was really slipping down a rabbit hole where he was struggling to differentiate between reality and fiction. And subsequently, everyone else in his life was losing the bedrock faith and trust that they had in his point of view,” he shared.

The resulting estrangement is something Ryan deeply regrets. “As I’m older now, I look back at it, and I think of it more as that was my unwillingness at the time to meet him where he was,” he reflects. “I could have maybe been there with him toward the end, and I wasn’t. He and I just drifted apart, and that’s something I’ll live with forever.”