Retired U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor made the news again this week, but not the kind of news she generated during her 14 years on what is arguably the most influential judicial body in the world.
In personal matters she is a private person. What public attention she got was usually about some judgment rendered from her exalted bench in Washington.
Her current notoriety also involves a judgment, but of an entirely different, achingly personal kind.
17 years ago her husband, John Jay O’Connor III, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The life expectancy from the onset of symptoms of the awful disease averages about 8 years. John’s family has had 17 years. Can you imagine trying to live a normal life that long, knowing all the time what lies ahead?
Remarkable!
To the customary heartaches that Alzheimer’s families carry was added the burden of being prominent, therefore newsworthy. Somebody found out that within hours of entering a facility specializing in care of Alzheimer’s patients, John had struck up a romance with a female patient in the same facility. It is a serious two way love affair.
With characteristic candor Justice O’Connor, speaking through her son Scott, dealt with the publicity up front and head on.
She told the media that, far from being offended or jealous, she was happy for John, glad that he is physically and emotionally happy. His relationship with his new love has dramatically changed his outlook on his condition and defused the angry despair with which he faced what he thought would be a grim and hopeless life. Mrs. O’Connor not only does not condemn her husband’s retro-adolescent new love, she views it with joy as a life-giving gift to John, one which, under the circumstances, she cannot give him. When she visits and John is relatively lucid that day he holds her hand, and the hand of his new friend.
Remarkable!
People who earn their living telling the public about such things lost no time offering their opinions.
Actually, most writers were reasonably restrained, avoiding scandal sheet sensationalism. Predictably, the hate-Republicans Washington Post was the only one I read that unnecessarily employed the word “adultery”.
One of the simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking experiences of my life was the pain and privilege of walking with a family wrestling with similar demons.
Harry and Ava, both mid-30s, naturally gifted with brains and personality, had two mid-teen sons upon whom the genetic flow had bestowed heaping helpings of the best qualities of combined parental qualities.
The entire small town took a blow to their collective solar plexus when Ava was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It took her down fast, from supermom to rapidly deteriorating shadow. Within two years of the onset she had to be hospitalized. Ava’s best friend was Barb, whose path now frequently merged with Harry’s in caring for the one they both loved. Predictably, their friendship grew increasingly close as mutual love for Ava stirred their nascent instincts. It was not surprising that frequent association, affection and respect morphed into wholesome love.
The ubiquitous community scandal sniffers pruriently floated the “A” word. But Ava understood a marriage contract does not convey ownership or the right to control, nor does it create or sustain steadfast love. Marriage is not a two way street, it is two streets running both ways between two persons. Ava understood that the conventional concept of marriage was now the adversary of all of them, including her boys.
It was Ava who began to suggest, then insist, that she should legally divorce Harry so he could marry Barb. Can you imagine, divorcing a husband you adore, as he does you, so he can have a full life with another woman?
Remarkable!
Nothing changed. Ava never became, in her eyes or anyone else's, Harry’s “ex”.
The legalists, Bible quoters, and self-appointed protectors of proper morals purveyed their customary poison. There were a lot of hurtful “How could you . . . ? comments to Harry. Small town America can be the most loving, helpful, vicious, and cruel of all social settings.
These two tormented families, in the extremities of life, display steadfast love.
I honor them!
Editor’s note: W. Jackson "Jack” Wilson is a psychologist, an Episcopal priest, a sometime academic and a writer living in Colorado. He writes with humor, whimsy, passion and penetrating insight into the human condition. And in Pushkin, Russia, a toilet is named in his honor.
Editor's note: We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.
