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Couple Married 63 Years Dies Hours Apart

Trent Winstead, 88, was first admitted to a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital on December 5 with kidney failure and though his wife Dolores, 83, accompanied him perfectly healthy, she suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage while there. Trent “died of a broken heart” hours after his wife died, his daughter Sheryl told the Washington Post.

The couple, who was married close to 64 years, never did anything without the other. They first met in the 1950s, shortly before Trent left to serve in the Korean War, and they wrote long letters to each other throughout his service. Trent proposed to Dolores almost immediately after returning and together they had two children, three grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Christmas was reportedly both of their favorite time of year.

According to WKRN, Dolores was placed in a separate hospital room from her husband when she required a ventilator to keep breathing after the hemorrhage. The separation made Trent too anxious, so hospital staff broke protocol and eventually rolled her into his room so they could be together as her condition worsened. 

The couple’s son Eddie told the station his father asked his children to ask God to wake her up. “He can create a miracle,” Trent reportedly said. He then explained “I don’t know who I’m going to sit on the couch with and watch the news anymore.” Though he was growing increasingly weak, he kept asking his kids if his wife was still breathing.

The pair was holding hands when Dolores died, the Post reports, and when Eddie told Trent Dolores had died, he watched his "spirit just [change]." Trent blew Dolores a kiss and told his children “you need to get her a pink casket, and a pink dress, because that’s what she wanted.” He died just a few hours later.

“Because she was gone, he just could not handle it,” Sheryl said. “We just watched him die.”

The family held a joint funeral for the Winsteads on December 16: her casket pink, his blue.

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