Bob CollinsA few weeks ago, I posted the story of Barry Peterson, the CBS News correspondent who has written a book (Jan’s Story) about his wife’s descent into Alzheimer’s. This morning, he appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday with host Scott Simon.
The interview documented Peterson’s struggle with living up to his wedding vows — in sickness and in health — while being able to have a life of his own. But something was missing from Peterson’s account that he gave to Simon, and the segment that aired on CBS a few weeks ago.
Here’s the NPR interview.
There was an important angle, however, in the CBS segment that NPR must have deliberately chosen to leave out, considering how important it is to the story of a husband choosing between wedding vows and life — Peterson fell in love with another woman.
“It (Alzheimer’s) presented me with one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make,” Peterson said of the new woman in his life. That statement alone should’ve made it important enough to be in the NPR story about how Alzheimer’s challenges families in ways few people can imagine.
