Ono’s painful memories

More than 30 years after John Lennon’s death, Yoko Ono still thinks of herself as his widow, said Nina Myskow in The Times (U.K.). She says even the mention of something as mundane as chocolate brings back memories of John. “When John passed away, we had been trying not to eat chocolate, to be healthy,” says Ono, 80. “But two nights before he died, he was in the studio, and I thought I’d go get him a bar. Even now it chokes me up a bit. He was so happy that I got him chocolate.” She begins to cry. “There are still difficult days for me.” Life with Lennon wasn’t always easy. At a New York party in the 1970s, she heard the former Beatle drunkenly making love to a woman in another room. “It was very loud, and someone was kind and tried to turn up the music. But it was Bob Dylan, and he’s pretty quiet.” The following day, she and Lennon decided to live apart, and he moved to Los Angeles. During the couple’s 18-month separation, he had an affair with his assistant, May Pang. Ono and Lennon reunited in 1974, and she became pregnant with their son, Sean. “It was great I gave him that freedom. At the time I thought, ‘Well, I can do whatever I want to do, too.’” She laughs. “But it didn’t work out that way.”

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