Real love—this is probably the exact term we can use to explain the marriage of Tom and Delma Ledbetter, a married couple that stays together all their lives and even had their last breath together on their deathbeds.
The 84-year-old Tom and 82-year-old Delma was a married couple of 62 years old before they died hand in hand in a nursing home. This elderly couple loved and cherished each other during their lives till death, literally.
Tom and Delma.
When Tom passed away on April 20, 2017, Delma subsequently followed him just one and a half hours later, exactly less than 90 minutes apart of each other.
“It was exactly how they wanted to go. It couldn’t have been any better,” said their daughter Donetta Nichols.
Tom and Delma’s love story began in their early 20s, during the 1950s. Known each other through mutual friends while living in Florida, Tom and Delma knew straight away that they’re meant to be.
But their first date happened when Tom was moving his car—wasn’t that romantic.
They drove around two, three different blocks or whatever and they came back and they parked. He said he reached over and he grabbed her hand and he said, ‘I don’t know what made me do it’. He said, ‘I just reached over and gave her a kiss on the cheek’,” told Nichols.
Three weeks later they got married, and it lasted till their last day.
During their life, Tom and Delma traveled around the United States, visiting campsite to campsite. But Delma became ill in April 2017, followed by Tom just a few days later. Both of them later had to be hospitalized in a nursing home.
“They couldn’t get a pulse. They couldn’t get a blood pressure. They couldn’t get anything. Yet mama was just hanging on to something. It seems that ‘something’ was her husband Tom, as strangely he fell ill shortly after his beloved wife,” added Nichols.
They became ill and die around the same time.
“We got him over to the nursing home with Mama. They had pushed their little beds together and Mama was laying right there, facing him. She was asleep and Daddy goes and he reached over there and he grabbed a hold of her hand and he just laid there with her, and it was so sweet,” continued Nichols.
Tom, Delma, and their family.
It was said that they never let go of each other’s hand even in death!
Credit: The Epoch Times
