After 72 Years They Died Holding Hands
Once in awhile you come across a story on the web that you’ve just got to pass on to others. Here’s one of them:
On the morning of May 26, 1939, Norma graduated from her high school in Iowa. That night married to Gordon Yeager. And for the next 72 years, they were hardly apart. “They just loved being together,” says their son, Dennis.
Their daughter, Donna, agrees: “They always did everything together,” she says. “They weren’t apart. They just weren’t.”
According to Dennis, “The party didn’t start until he showed up. He was the outgoing one and she supported him by being the giver. She supported Dad in everything. And he would’ve been lost without her.”
Gordon, 94, and Norma, 90, became concerned about what would happen when one of them died. “He said, ‘I have to stick around … I can’t go until she does because I have to stay here for her.’ And she would say the same thing,” Dennis says.
Earlier this month, they were in a car accident in their hometown of State Center, Iowa, and were sent to the hospital with multiple injuries. Separated at first, each asked about the other. Then the hospital moved them into a room together, where they lay in side-by-side beds, holding hands.
Gordon, age 94, died in the middle of the afternoon. Everyone in the room was amazed at what happened next. Even though he had stopped breathing, his monitor still showed a heartbeat.
Finally they realized it was Norma’s heartbeat, passing through their hands.
Norma passed an hour later. “Neither one of them would’ve wanted to be without each other,” Donna says. “I couldn’t figure out how it was going to work. We were very blessed, honestly, that they went this way.”
And I suppose all of us are blessed to catch such a glimpse of oneness in marriage.
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