Some say that marriage between a husband and wife is predestined and meant to be. This is so true for this elderly couple, who loved and cherished each other in sickness and in health, till death did them part.
Tom, 84, and Delma Ledbetter, 82, a married couple of 62 years, took their last breaths together on their deathbeds, dying hand in hand in a nursing home on April 21, 2017. Tom passed away first, subsequently followed by Delma one and a half hours later.
“It was exactly how they wanted to go. It couldn’t have been any better,” said their daughter Donetta Nichols.
A touching photo of the couple holding hands before they passed away, just less than 90 minutes apart of each other, inspired many netizens. The love story of Tom and Delma Ledbetter began when they were in their early 20s, during the 1950s.
The loving couple from Lake Jackson knew each other through mutual friends while living in Florida, and straight away, they knew that they were meant to be together. Their first date wasn’t that romantic, and it happened when Tom was moving his car.
“They drove around two, three different blocks or whatever and they came back and they parked,” said Nichols.
“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,’” said Nichols. And three weeks later, they got married.
Tom and Delma, who were survived by two daughters, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren, relied on each other for companionship in their twilight years. They traveled around the United States, visiting campsite to campsite.
Then in April 2017, Delma became so ill, followed by Tom days later, that they 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,” recounted Nichols.
“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,” Nichols continued.
Tom and Delma Ledbetter were together for 62 years, and even in death, they never let go of each other’s hands!
Such a story of lasting love and devotion is uncommon in today’s world when divorce is rampant. Their sweet love story serves to remind us that marriage is a solemn vow we should keep “until death do us part.”
