But, after the tour was over, Glen struggled greatly.
“There were times he’d wake up and look at me and go ‘Are we married?’ He quit calling me by my name a long time ago,” Kim told PEOPLE about her husband’s frightening decline. “And then, he grew combative. He gave me a black eye. I’m younger than him and faster than him so I avoided a lot. You don’t take it personally. It’s part of the disease. They lose their ability to communicate verbally so if you are trying to do something they don’t like, they instinctively lash out.”
In 2015, Glen moved into long-term care, eventually settling at Abe’s Garden, a memory care facility in Nashville. While Kim received some criticism for the decision, she explained that it was the best move for Glen’s health. She explained how hard the battle against Alzheimer’s was for them as a couple and their children.
After the star’s death, Kim was better able to remember the joyous times they shared.
“There was a time when all I could remember was the sickness,” Kim told PEOPLE in 2017 about the impact of the disease. “But now that he’s passed, the good memories are starting to flood back in.”
Kim hopes that her book will not only help educate people about the challenges of Alzheimer’s — a goal she shared with Glen — but give a complete portrait of the husband and father behind the epic hits.
“He was 22 years older than me but age didn’t matter between us — he was so young at heart and excited about ordinary things,” Kim said in 2017. “Life was just beautiful.”
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