Sandra Day O’Connor’s beloved husband has found a new woman – and she couldn’t be happier.
The retired Supreme Court justice’s spouse, John O’Connor, has had Alzheimer’s disease for 17 years, and after moving into an assisted-living center in Phoenix, he began a romance with a fellow patient also suffering from the mind-debilitating ailment.
But the justice isn’t jealous – the O’Connor family believes the love has given John, 77, a new lease on life.
“Mom was thrilled that dad was relaxed and happy and comfortable living here and wasn’t complaining,” their son Scott O’Connor, 50, told Phoenix’s KPNX-TV.
Scott said that when his father recently arrived at the Huger Mercy Living Center, he was depressed.
“He knew this was sort of the beginning of the end,” said Scott O’Connor. “It was basically suicide talk.”
Then John O’Connor was moved to another part of the center, where he met a lady simply known as Kay.
They are often together and hold hands, Scott told KPNX.
“Forty-eight hours after moving into that new cottage, he was a teenager in love. He was happy.”
Lisa O’Toole, a manager at Huger Mercy, couldn’t comment on the specific patients, but said that it’s not unusual to be in love with anyone at an Alzheimer’s facility.
But “it’s not that they fall in love,” O’Toole, who oversees 48 patients, told The Post. “It’s just that they need to connect with somebody. It’s not like a planned rendezvous at all.”
O’Toole said that while patients remember friends and family, it is common for them to become very attached to the new people they begin to see everyday.
She also said the O’Connors’ reaction has been noble.
“I’ve seen total extremes where families just fall apart, the wife doesn’t understand, and they’ll cry. And then you have the other end, the opposite spectrum . . . and that it’s OK that they have somebody to make them happy.”
Dr. Peter Reed, senior director of programs at the national Alzheimer’s Association, based in Chicago, said he couldn’t estimate how common romance is among patients, but said continuing interpersonal relationships is crucial.
“It is positive for people to continue to forge new relationships, [but] it can be very challenging for family members who don’t know these new people,” said Reed. “The Alzheimer’s Association encourages people to stay involved even when these people don’t remember them.”
He said there are approximately 5 million Alzheimer’s sufferers in America, and that number is expected to more than triple by the middle of the century as Baby Boomers age.
There is currently no cure for the neurological disease, but early detection can stave off a life of misery.
“The early warning signs are memory loss, disorientation and confusion – It is very important for people to recognize these symptoms and seek professional diagnoses, so they can begin planning,” said Reed. “The earlier they recognize them, the earlier they can still be part of their own decision-making process.”
A Supreme Court spokeswoman said Justice O’Connor had no comment herself on the issue.
O’Connor, 77, was the 102nd person to sit on the Supreme Court and the first woman. President Ronald Reagan nominated her in July 1981.
In her early days, she was seen as a tough conservative, but as the court leaned more to the right, she became a moderate swing vote.
She was succeeded in January 2006 by Justice Samuel Alito.