[ad_1]
Dick Meek, 89, and Shirley Meek, 87, died within minutes of each other on Jan. 16 at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, the family said.
“They never had to live until death do us part,” said their daughter Debbie Howell. “They never had to do this because they were together and we are still very grateful.”
The couple were due to receive their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine on January 19, the day of their father’s 90th birthday. “They were so close,” her daughter Vicci Harper said.
The Coschcoton, Ohio couple met in high school and have been dating ever since. “You read love at first sight and you think it’s not true,” the family said. “Well, it was love at first sight for my father.” They celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on December 22.
“They weren’t your typical 88- and 90-year-old woman,” Debbie Howell told CNN. “They were both very, very healthy, very dynamic people with all their faculties. They came down so quickly.”
The couple tested positive for Covid-19 on December 26 after experiencing symptoms they believed to be a cold. After several days of back-and-forth symptoms, they went to an emergency care facility for a Covid test and their health deteriorated from there, the family told CNN.
Dick was admitted to Coshocton Regional Medical Center on January 2 and Shirley followed him two days later, the family said. Both had difficulty breathing.
As their condition declined, they had to be transferred to a second hospital. At the time, there was a chance the two would be transferred to separate hospitals, but staff helped advocate that they would both be transferred to Riverside Methodist Hospital.
“From January 8 to the end, it just went up and down,” Howell said. “There were days when we were really optimistic about their survival, but their lungs kept failing more and more every day.”
When the healthcare team told the family that their parents had only a few days to live, they requested that their parents be placed in the same room. “We didn’t want them to be apart because it was their biggest thing in life that they would be together,” Howell said.
“We wanted them to hold hands. We wanted them to be together. We wanted their favorite music to play softly in the background,” she told CNN. And the hospital staff did.
A nurse created a two-hour playlist of the couple’s favorite songs and played them while holding hands for the last time. Shirley was the first to pass, then Dick.
“The nurse put my mom’s head on my dad’s shoulder. And she walked over and she rubbed my dad’s shoulder and said ‘Dick, you can go now. Shirley you’ waits, “” Howell said. “And in a few minutes he was gone.
The family said they felt lucky that her parents were able to pass their hands on and thanked hospital staff for helping them honor their love story.
[ad_2]
Source link