Patrick Swayze’s Widow Lisa Niemi Reflects on Finding Love Again With Husband Albert DePrisco
Lisa Niemi's heart followed the rhythm of love.
The dancer recently reflected on marrying Albert DePrisco in 2014, after her first husband Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer in 2009.
"I have a dear widow friend. I fell in love with Albert," Lisa shared on Today April 28. "I said, ‘It's really weird because it doesn't conflict with the love that I still have for Patrick.' And just because somebody's gone doesn't mean you fall out of love."
The 66-year-old tied the knot with the Dirty Dancing star in 1975, and they remained married for 35 years. Yet she felt that, after Patrick's passing, she still had a part of herself to share with a partner.
As she put is, "My wise friend said, ‘That's because love comes from the same well.' I thought that's a really wonderful thing to say. Albert and I both felt like we have a lot of love still left to give and felt very fortunate we found someone to give it to.
However, from time to time, Lisa will see one of Patrick's movies come across the television, bringing her back to memories of him.
"Here and there, it kind of catches me unaware and I always have my favorite parts," she recalled. "I always cry in the same three places in Ghost. I always love him falling out of the back of the airplane in Point Break, going, ‘Adios, amigo,' because that's him. That's so quintessential Patrick."
Lisa even hears Patrick in her thoughts from time to time, encouraging her as he once had.
"His voice is in my head. He comments on what I'm doing," the One Last Dance actress confessed. "When I need a bolstering up or something's going on, I can ask him in my head, and I hear exactly what he's saying, which is generally, ‘Come on, girl, get real.'"
These days, Lisa is honoring the Powder Blue star's memory by becoming an advocate for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.
"I still care and I know how tough Patrick's and my journey was with this," she told host Hoda Kotb. "Cancer may have taken him, but it didn't beat him. And I'm continuing his fight for him."
Patrick was also vocal about their love for one another. Four years before his death, he reflected on the key to a successful marriage with Lisa after 30 years.
"I suppose it's about keeping love alive, learning how to fall in love over and over again, not taking each other for granted, forgiveness, trust," he shared in 2005, per the Daily Mail. "Whatever it is, it works for us."
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