Husband and wife of 48 years have passed away just minutes apart after battling COVID-19 for a whole month.
65-year-old Cathy Darlene Peoples and 67-year-old Johnny Lee Peoples were a North Carolina couple who “walked hand in hand for those 50 years” according to their son, Shane.
Following five decades of shared moments, Johnny and Cathy passed away while holding hands in the ICU at the Novant Health Regional Medical Center.
As Shane explained, his parents had been fighting the virus for thirty days before succumbing to the disease following a rapid decline in their health.
“It was mainly the fever and loss of taste. My dad starting showing symptoms two days later. About two weeks later they were both put in the ICU. Everything just went south, everything just got worse,” Shane explained in an interview with WBTV.
Once the couple was near their end, the hospital staff made their final wish come true by bringing their beds together so that they could see each other and hold hands.
According to the grieving son, his parents died just four minutes apart shortly after they were placed in the same intensive care unit room.
Speaking to WBTV, Shane has also urged people to take the virus seriously because he doesn’t want other people to go through what his family has suffered.
“We were cheated. The lives of Mom and Dad were stolen by a virus that many joke about on a daily basis or just straight out believe it’s a hoax of some sort. Both of them took this pandemic seriously and still got sick, still died,” Shane wrote in a tribute to his parents.
“My parents weren’t just a blessing for me, my brother, my sister, our spouses, and our children. They were a blessing to every person that met them.”
As Shane added, his parents “died together holding hands and walked into Heaven holding hands.”
Replaced!