Never to part: Devoted couples share life, death

'He always looked out for her'
Don and Margaret Irwin, who were married in 1951, became fast friends with Aurlo and Virginia Bonney when they moved to the Hearthstone. The four made a point of eating together each day in the dining room.

“Their relationship was remarkably close,” Don remembers. “He always looked out for her and they worked well together.”

While the Irwins say they understand how Aurlo and Virginia might not have wanted to live without the other, that’s not the case for them, they say. “We’ve got lots of interests,” says Margaret. “If I go, he’ll keep himself busy with all of his interests.”

That independence may be a key difference in whether a widow or widower thrives after their partner has died, says James Ellor, director of the Center for Gerontological Studies at Baylor University’s School of Social Work.

He says longtime couples tend to fall into one of several groups: Those who’ve been together decades but may not really have deep emotional roots with each other; those who are close but are still able to find purpose without the other, although they grieve deeply; and lastly, couples who feel they can’t find hope without the other.

The last group is where you see one mate dying soon after the other, he says.

“Viktor Frankl called this the will to meaning,” Ellor notes, referring to the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor. “Human beings, according to Frankl, need to find meaning in their life. When they can absolutely find no meaning there, they are capable of giving up and dying regardless of their medical status.”

Ellor, who knew Frankl, said the doctor recounted that when he was a prisoner in Auschwitz he sometimes witnessed another prisoner finding out that everyone they loved had been killed. “At that point you can count on them dying,” Ellor said. “They would simply sit down in a corner and not move.”

Bonney family / msnbc.com Aurlo and Virginia Bonney's close relationship inspired their granddaughter Tara Coffland to write them a letter when she was in college telling them how extraordinary their marriage is. "They're a really great example for me,” says Coffland, who was married last year. “They had a mutual respect for each other.”

Wechkin, the hospice director, says that for many, having a connection and ties to another is essential to living. “We’re social animals,” she says. “One of the greatest punishments we can think of is solitary confinement.”

Conversely, one of the greatest hopes may be the dream of never being separated from your love by that gaping divide of death.

‘I think he was lost’
On June 11, Tara Coffland went to visit her grandparents and found Virginia in a deep sleep and breathing irregularly.

As the day wore on, it became clear Virginia was dying. Her children and grandchildren gathered around her bed and told stories as Aurlo listened and laughed. They pushed the couple’s beds together so that Aurlo could hold his wife’s hand one last time, rub her arm and whisper his love to her.

As the day wore down, Virginia’s breathing continued to slow and then, at last, stopped. Not sure if Aurlo was aware that she was gone, their daughter-in-law Kathleen told him, “Aurlo, Virginia just died.”

“He started crying and I told him they were a great example to all of us,” she remembers. “It was amazing to see that kind of love.”

In the days after Virginia died, Aurlo declined quickly, seeming more confused and withdrawn.

“He didn’t look like he wanted to be here,” says Leggett, the activities director at the Hearthstone. “I didn’t see any joy, humor, a desire to even eat. I think he was lost.”

During Virginia’s memorial service, Kathleen sat next to him as he sobbed and wiped the tears that flowed down his cheeks.

Two days later, as he sat in his bed in the room he and Virginia had shared, Aurlo slipped away.

Losing both parents so close together was devastating, says Bill. But he couldn’t imagine it any other way.

"Their loved ones are grieved by their deaths," their family wrote in the couple's obituary a week later, "but no one would have wanted them apart from each other, in this life or the next."

Freelance writer Debbie Cafazzo contributed to this article.

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