John Lydon believes his wife's battle with Alzheimer's disease has made them "love each other more".
John Lydon
The 65-year-old rocker is a full-time carer for Nora Foster, who he calls Babbie, and though it isn't easy to tend to all her needs himself, he insisted he won't put her into a specialist facility.
According to the Daily Mirror newspaper, he wrote in his book 'I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right': “We’re not dealing with the walking dead. It’s a matter of memory fusing in and out.
“I had those issues when I was younger, coming out of meningitis. So I’m absolutely in the right place for it. It makes us love one another even more, no question.
“We’d never be: ‘Oh dear, time to lock you away’. No.
“It’s tough to deal with advice from people who absolutely mean well. But I have people who talk to me about their mother or their aunt, who are going through dementia. And it’s not the same for me because Nora’s my significant other. It’s a huge world of difference. And there’s no real literature out there or expert advice to help me.”
The former Sex Pistols frontman finds Nora's struggle a "strange blessing" because it's brought them closer together and he's learned a lot about himself.
He wrote: “Alzheimer’s is dreadful. She has to relearn things every day and you must never lose your patience with it.
“No matter how many times you ask the same question, give the right answer. Don’t fob them off. I’m learning a lot about myself this way. It’s a strange blessing, I suppose, because oddly enough it’s bringing us closer together.
“And I don’t mind the demand for attention from her. It’s absolutely essential for her to maintain her integrity. There’s no thought at all about homes or any of that, most definitely not at this point. I mean institutions, where they just lock them away and ignore them and wait for them to die pitifully. Oh, God, not for me, thank you.
“Babbie needs my help and I’m more than willing to give it.”
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