After more than six decades in love, Don and Maxine Simpson passed away in adjacent beds within hours of each other.
The couple, from Bakersfield, California, were said to have fallen in love from the moment they met in a bowling alley in the late 1940s.
Watched over by family members, granddaughter Melissa Sloan told local news station KERO:
“They left this world together. It’s absolutely beautiful, and the story is beautiful.
“All Don wanted was to be with his beautiful wife. He adored my grandmother, loved her to the end of the Earth.”
Don’s health suffered a setback when he was in hospital for a broken hip that he sustained during a fall, while Maxine had been battling cancer for a short time.
The couple’s family arranged for the pair to come home from hospital, so they could move into the spare room in the family home together.
Melissa spoke about the moment the couple realised where they were together again, saying:
“Gram woke up and saw him, and held hands and they knew that they were next to each other.
“[After she died] I walked them out with her body, walked back in to check on grandpa and he quit breathing as soon as her body left the room. He left with her, and they passed four hours apart from each other.”
Melissa said it was a fitting end for her grandparents, who could never bare being apart.
