A US couple who were married for 63 years has passed away just minutes apart on the same day in the same room.
Henry and Jeanette De Lange from South Dakota, were married in 1953. They had five children together. He was a Korean War Veteran, and she was a musician.
Both were at the Platte Care Center, a South Dakota-based nursing home, when their health recently began to take a turn for the worse.
Their son Lee told KSFY.com they got a call on July 31.
“They said both your mum and dad aren’t doing very well at all. Highly recommended that we get there as soon as we could,” he said.
Jeanette, 87, had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and Henry, 86, was fighting prostate cancer.
“Dad visited mum once a day, twice, or maybe three times a day. It was very sweet,” Lee said. “Wednesday or Thursday, she had stopped eating. She was dehydrated.”
After some recent falls, Lee said his father Henry’s condition got worse.
“He said, ‘I need to go to the nursing home’. They put mum and dad in the same room which was very sweet,” he added.
“Wednesday, when we checked him in, he said ‘I don’t know how many more days I have Lee. How many more days the good Lord will have me here’.”
On Sunday July 31, their children knew they were running out of time.
“[The doctor] said your dad’s pulse is worse. I wonder if he’ll go first,” Lee said.
“About five minutes later, the aid said I think your mum will go very soon. It was 5.05pm at that point.”
A 5.10pm she passed away.
“My brother Keith said to my dad, said ‘mum’s gone to heaven. You don’t have to fight anymore, you can go too if you want’. He was laying in bed. He, for the first time, opened his eyes, looked intently over where mom was. Closed his eyes back down. Laid back down, died about 5 or 10 minutes after that,” Lee recalled.
Then at 5.30pm, Henry passed away just 20 minutes after his wife. The clock in the room had stopped on 5.30pm too.
“Amazing. A sign from God that was the right time,” Lee said.
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