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“My husband was just a wonderful, charming, delightful man. When asked about her husband’s diagnosis, O’Connor focused not on her own struggles, but on how hard it was for him. He practiced law in Washington, but, because of the potential conflict of interest, his career was restricted by his wife’s work. John O’Connor left a successful law practice in Phoenix when his wife was appointed to the nation’s top court. He had been totally supportive of my career in ways that are remarkable, I think.” “My husband had been fantastic through the years. She matter-of-factly says that giving up her work on the Supreme Court so that she could care for her husband “was not a difficult choice.” If O’Connor’s life is a story of hard work and breaking down barriers, it is also a love story, a tale of two people who sacrificed for each other. “Your goal should be to make the best time you can of it.” “It’s very depressing to know you can’t do anything about it,” she told the Bulletin. She urged Congress to dramatically increase funding for Alzheimer’s research, adding that millions of Americans have traveled the painful path that she walked for 20 years, from her husband’s first diagnosis in 1990 to his death in November.Īs the first woman on the Supreme Court, O’Connor overcame obstacles for decades, but Alzheimer’s was a problem she could only accommodate. She testified before the Senate last year on Alzheimer’s disease, which struck her husband and prompted her retirement from the Supreme Court four years ago. And she was on the Alzheimer’s Study Group, a blue-ribbon panel co-chaired by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Last year, she also came out with her second children’s book, Finding Susie, a semi-autobiographical tale about a little girl living on a ranch and searching for the perfect pet. In addition to her court work, she accepts speaking engagements around the country to press for her two favorite causes: civic education and merit selection for judges. O’Connor, who was nominated to the high court 29 years ago this week, said her calendar is completely booked for the next two years. “It is more than a full-time job to sit on those courts.” “Over the last 12 months, I have sat on more cases, heard more cases and written more opinions than I would have as an active justice on the Supreme Court,” she said during an interview with the AARP Bulletin. She travels around the country, filling in when appellate judges are on vacation or seats are vacant. The law allows retired justices to continue working as judges on lower federal courts, and O’Connor has enthusiastically thrown herself into that. By some measures, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is working harder than she did when she was on the nation’s highest court.