<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Friday, March 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Married 63 years, couple died hours apart in same hospital room

By Samantha Schmidt, The Washington Post
Published: December 23, 2016, 10:33pm

Dolores Winstead was mostly silent as she stood by her husband’s hospital bed earlier this month, cupping his hand in both of hers. The 88-year-old man’s kidneys had begun to fail, he hadn’t eaten in days and his blood pressure was sinking.

As Trent Winstead’s condition worsened, and before Dolores fell ill beside him, the 83-year-old woman said softly: “I don’t know what I would do without him.”

The Nashville couple had been together for nearly 64 years, through Trent’s service in the Korean War, the birth of two children, three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. For more than six decades, Dolores and Trent remained side by side.

It was the early 1950s — just before Trent left for the war — when they began dating. He wrote long letters to her from overseas, saying he was “awful glad to hear from her.” When Trent proposed, he wanted so badly for her to be his wife that he asked her while she was brushing her teeth. How could she say no with a toothbrush in her mouth?

They were polar opposites: Dolores, a reserved woman who loved to cook, and Trent, an outgoing golfer and avid fisherman. He worked at a Ford glass plant, and she worked making hymnals and literature for religious services.

After retirement, they spent quiet days together in their home, watching the 10 p.m. news on the couch every night, and going to church together every Sunday. He called her “Mama,” or by her middle name, Aileen, stealing kisses from her, and dancing with her at weddings.

“It sounds so simple but it was so sweet,” their daughter, Sheryl Winstead, said. “They loved each other through the humdrum days. They were more and more in love every day.”

Trent was the type of stalwart, Purple-Heart veteran who never liked going to the doctor. But when nausea caused him to stop eating, his daughter made him go to the hospital. As doctors treated him Dec. 6, it was clear his kidneys were failing, and he would need dialysis. He was admitted to the intensive care unit, and the dialysis began to weaken his heart.

For most of the first two days in the hospital with him, Dolores seemed to be feeling fine. But on the night of Dec. 7, she began to complain of a headache. Then she started throwing up. At about 10 p.m., she sat down in a chair in her husband’s hospital room, resting with her head slumped over. This was not an unusual position for her to nap in, Sheryl Winstead said, so at first it wasn’t concerning.

But when her daughter tried shook her shoulder, Dolores wouldn’t wake up. She continued breathing as nurses rushed to try to revive her in the emergency room, but her brain activity was gone. She had had a massive brain hemorrhage.

A nurse rolled Trent in a wheelchair to her room. The family watched, heartbroken.

“Just ask God to wake her up,” he said to his children. “He can create a miracle.”

Noticing Dolores’ deteriorating condition, and Trent’s anguish, the hospital staff got approval to place the couple in the same room, their hospital beds right next to each other.

Just as they had on countless other nights, the couple lay side by side, holding hands. At 9:10 p.m. Dec. 9, about five weeks before the couple’s 64th anniversary, Dolores stopped breathing.

For several minutes, Sheryl Winstead and her brother, Eddie Winstead, could not bring themselves to tell their father that his best friend and partner was gone. Finally, Eddie Winstead said tenderly: “She’s passed on, Dad.”

Trent died the next day.

“Literally, he died of a broken heart,”Sheryl Winstead said.

For the couple’s joint funeral on Dec. 16, the family chose the song “Love Remains,” by Hillary Scott.

“A boy moves on, takes a bride. And she stands faithful, by his side,” the song lyrics say.

“They share joy, they share pain. But through it all, love remains.”

For their burial — in the same way the couple departed — they were laid to rest together, side by side.

Loading...