NASHVILLE (WSVN) — A devoted couple stayed together through the very end, dying just hours apart next to each other in the hospital.
According to Fox 5, 83-year-old Dolores Winstead and her husband Trent, 88, both passed away in a Tennessee hospital in early December, just a month before what would have been their 64th wedding anniversary.
The couple’s daughter Sheryl said that, up until late last month, the two had been self-sufficient, doing everything together without help. But Trent took a bad spill, and his health rapidly deteriorated. Doctors determined his kidneys were shutting down.
Sheryl said she tried to prepare her mother for the worst, while her mother replied, “I just don’t know how I could live without him.”
The next day, Dolores suffered a brain aneurysm while visiting her husband at the hospital. Staff decided to move her to a bed in the same room with Trent, and pushed their beds together so the two could hold hands.
Dolores soon passed away, and the family broke the news to Trent. He quietly replied, “I was supposed to go first.”
While doctors said Trent’s kidneys had shown good progress on dialysis, Sheryl said his heart began to fail after he learned about his wife’s passing. “His kidneys were trying to recuperate, but he was literally dying of a broken heart.”
Dolores died the evening of Dec. 9. At 4 p.m. the next day, Trent’s heart gave out.
“In one sense, it’s a super sweet story, and in another it’s super sad,” Sheryl said. “I know they are together and happy for eternity, and that is a comfort to me. But I never in a million years dreamed I would walk out of the hospital without either one of them.”
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