A 94-year-old man breathed his last breath in an Iowa care center three hours after his wife of 73 years passed away and he prayed to Jesus to take him home too.
James Wold and his wife, Wanda, 96, died in the same room that the couple lived in together at Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, KCCI reported.
When James was told that his wife had gone to be with Jesus, “he folded his hands with both of us on either side and said, ‘Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for taking her and would you please take me,’” the couple’s daughter, Candy Engstler, was quoted as saying.
Wanda, who had Alzheimer’s, died at 4 a.m. on July 20 and James passed away at 7 a.m. the same day and in the same care center.
James and Wanda’s marriage was based on faith and love, Engstler said, adding that she believed God “allowed them both to go on the same day.”
“I feel it was their time. The Lord called them and He called them in a beautiful way, so I will just hang onto that,” she said.
The couple married in 1948, according to CBN News, which also said that James was in the U.S. Navy and served in World War II, and Wanda was a registered nurse.
In a similar incident in 2017, a 91-year-old man, Isaac Vatkin, and his 89-year-old wife, Teresa, who had been married for 69 years, died just minutes apart at a hospital in Illinois, the Daily Herald reported at the time.
The loving couple from the village of Skokie took their last breaths “peacefully” while holding hands in their wheeled beds at Highland Park Hospital. Family members placed their hands together after the hospital staff put their beds, side by side, when signs of their imminent death became clear.
Teresa was the first to go, and about 40 minutes later, her husband followed.
Family members recalled that when Teresa was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Isaac made himself learn how to use a computer just to research a possible cure for his wife’s ailment. When his children moved to transfer their mother to a nursing home to get specialized care, Isaac resisted at first, not wanting to be away from his wife.
He finally acceded to his children’s request, but made it a point to visit his wife in the nursing home every day even as his own health began to fail.