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Former Sex Pistols singer John Lydon is mourning the death of his wife Nora Forster at age 80 following her long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The news of Forster’s passing was shared on the Instagram feed of Lydon’s band Public Image Limited in a post that read, “Rest in Peace Nora Forster. It is with a heavy heart that we share the sad news that Nora Forster – John Lydon’s wife of nearly 5 decades – has passed away. Nora had been living with Alzheimer’s for several years. In which time John had become her full time carer.”

The punk icon and Forster were married for 44 years and Lydon had spent the past few years dedicating his public efforts to honoring his longtime love. Lydon, 66 — who was known as Johnny Rotten during his Pistols days — entered the Eurovision Song Contest earlier this year with a touching ballad, “Hawaii,” dedicated to his beloved.

“All journeys end/ Some begin again/ We’re here, you and me/ Hawaii/ Remember me,” Lydon sang over gently thrumming drums and a swaying arrangement in the song that failed to advance in the contest.

The notoriously irascible singer also dedicated his emotional run on The Masked Singer last year to the love of his life and told Billboard at the time that he agreed to slip into the Jester costume to make Nora smile.

“I thought it would be really good because it meant my lovely wife, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, might get a great sense of fun out of it if she managed to guess who it was,” he said. “We’ve lived together for 47 years, Nora and I, so she must have some clues as to who I am and what I can get up to.”

As for why he agreed to do the show after a lifetime of kicking against the mainstream, Lydon said it was love, after all. “This is a giggle, which I don’t mind sharing with the general public, but mostly because I want to see my wife happy,” he said. “Alzheimer’s is a very, very challenging illness. Any connection I can have to bring joy into her life I’m more than happy to do that. Those are my motives.”

According to the BBC Lydon met Forster — who came from a wealthy publishing family — at Vivienne Westwood and Pistol manager Malcolm McLaren’s punk shop Sex in London in 1975, just before the Pistols blew up. Their family ties to punk went deep, as Forster’s daughter from her first marriage to singer Frank Forster, Ariana, became better known as The Slits singer Ari Up; Ariana died from breast cancer in 2010 at age 48.

Earlier this year, Lydon told the Sunday Times that caring for his wife had elicited profound changes in him. “It’s hideous. So pernicious and vile to watch someone you love just slowly disappear,” he said, adding that their life together had been “worth every moment… No joy comes without pain, and boy do I know that now.”

Frances Bean Cobain and Courtney Love paid tribute to Kurt Cobain on the 29th anniversary of the Nirvana singer’s death this week. Cobain’s only child, Frances, 30, posted a loving message about the impermanence of existence in a since-expired Instagram Story (per Rolling Stone) in what appeared to be a meditation on her late father.

“Life is like a wave crashing upon the shore & death is like the wave returning back to the ocean, back to its most natural state,’” she wrote on the anniversary on Wednesday. “I forget exactly where I heard this quote but hearing it makes loss seem less scary and more like a return to the collective consciousness of loving awareness,” the visual artist and singer continued. “Free from pain or human worry. Death serves a purpose. It is what makes life so precious, in the same way pain is purposeful because we wouldn’t know joy without it.”

The message ended with a lesson about being thankful and sharing your love. “Everyday I aim to have gratitude for everything that surrounds this life including loss,” Frances Bean concluded. “It’s the ultimate teacher. Hold the people you love a little more tightly and a little bit closer for me today.”

Cobain’s widow, Hole singer Love, honored the April 5th anniversary by posting an image of Kurt’s hands taken by R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe. “I love beautiful hands, it’s the first thing I look at in another. I love that the only photograph of Kurt that @michaelstipe took despite being a lover of all sorts of beauty, kudzu, @helenachristensen, river pheonix; dozens if not 100s of gorgeous photos of people he finds and sees their ‘Shen’ (a Chinese word of what’s in the eyes – loosely translated as ‘mojo’ but more about the ‘twinkle’),” she wrote alongside the black and white image of the singer/guitarists hands folded over each other across his stomach.

“But Micheal saw these hands. These left handed beautiful hands like a votive/ a mudra, a shot this singular, powerful photograph of my twin flame,” added the singer who is a longtime practicing Buddhist. “It is one of the only images (or sounds/ tastes etc) that makes me miss him deeply. But he chanted with me & often, & truly was moved by our Buddhist practice. I know he’s in an enlightened place, more so, than we here in mappo are. “The arms of a 1000 Buddhas outstretched to greet you” the gosho says. Nam myoho renge kyo dear Kurt D. C. ?? i & we love & miss you.”

Cobain, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 8, three days after police determined that he had taken his own life.

See Love’s post here.

If you’re thinking about suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.