|
Post by Willing Sniper on Feb 25, 2013 9:58:11 GMT -8
N.Y. man who died on way to late wife's memorial buried beside herBy Anna Hiatt NEW YORK | Fri Feb 22, 2013 4:17pm GMT (Reuters) - An upstate New York man who died on the way to his late wife's wake was buried in a plot beside her on Wednesday, after a dual funeral service that capped a 66-year marriage, their daughter said on Thursday. Norman Hendrickson, 94, a retired assistant postmaster in an Albany suburb, stopped breathing in the limousine on the way to a wake on Saturday for his late wife Gwen, who died earlier this month after suffering for years from Parkinson's Disease, daughter Norma said. Funeral home staffers laid Hendrickson in a casket and placed him beside an urn containing his wife's remains in a viewing room, while daughter Merrilyne posted a light-hearted sign for arriving mourners: "Surprise - it's a Double-Header - Norman and Gwen Hendrickson - February 16, 2013." Norma Hendrickson said her parents were buried side by side in the same plot on Wednesday, along with some of the ashes of their late son, who died in 2008, and a watercolour painting her sister Merrilyne had made for them. Funeral director Elizabeth Nichols-Ross, a family friend, said the couple laughed a lot and would have enjoyed the irony of the situation - especially Norman, who loved jokes. "I don't blush easily, but he told ones that made you blush," she said. She joked with the family that their father, who was known to be thrifty, would have loved to save the costs of a second funeral, so she didn't charge the family for two services. Mourners took the surprise in stride, Nichols-Ross said. "Oh, that doesn't surprise me," she quoted one mourner as saying. "He wanted to be with Gwen.'" (Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Todd Eastham)
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2013 19:20:07 GMT -8
Wow, amazing coincidence... You hear about this irony from time to time...
|
|
|
Post by Willing Sniper on Mar 5, 2013 19:37:46 GMT -8
The same thing happened to my great grand parents and my grand parents.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2013 8:52:52 GMT -8
The same thing happened to my great grand parents and my grand parents. Wow, that is sort of sad but sweet.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2013 10:33:41 GMT -8
Two hearts beating as one Some theorize the toll of grief can be too much for those who are already aged and physically fragile. The more spiritually minded believe that the bond between some couples may be so strong that when one soul departs, the other chooses to follow. Others say there are medical causes at work. The No. 1 cause of death of a bereaved spouse is heart disease and sudden death, meaning the heart stops, says Dr. Lee Lipsenthal, an internist and expert in cardiac rehabilitation who founded Finding Balance in a Medical Life, a Marin County, Calif., organization that focuses on physician well-being. "Generally within 18 months is the risk period," says Lipsenthal, "It's relatively close to the death and it diminishes over time." Those who are elderly and physically fragile are more likely to die after the death of a spouse than a younger widow or widower, says Wechkin, whose own grandparents died less than two weeks apart. “The death of a spouse places you at risk … but context matters a lot,” she says. “If you’re perfectly healthy, your risk is very low.” Doctors have long known that stress hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine that are raised by grief can take a damaging toll on the body. But there may be other forces at play as well. Research shows that in some cases, one person’s heartbeat can affect, even regulate, another’s, possibly acting as a type of life support. In one such study, Rollin McCraty, research director at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, Calif., looked at what happened to six longtime couples' hearts while they slept. Heart-rate monitors revealed that during the night, as the couple slept beside each other, their heart rhythms fell into sync, rising and falling at the same time. When the printouts of their EKGs were placed on top of each other, they looked virtually the same. Advertise | AdChoices
“When people are in a relationship for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, they create sort of a co-energetic resonance with each other,” says Lipsenthal, who is the past director of Dr. Dean Ornish’s Preventative Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif. “A simple analogy is two tuning forks, put next to each other. They create a co-resonant pitch. What happens when two people sleep together for 50 years? What happens when one goes away?” In recent years, another condition has come to light: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as “broken heart syndrome.”
The condition nearly always follows a traumatic emotional loss, such as death of a spouse, parent or child and it primarily affects women. It causes chest pain and sudden heart failure, believed to be brought on by a surge of fight or flight hormones, says Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, a geriatrician at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Patients with the condition tend to recover faster than most other heart patients, says Messinger-Rapport. And if they survive the initial bout, it almost never recurs. “Is it possible to die of a broken heart?” says Wechkin. “Absolutely.”
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2013 9:36:04 GMT -8
The same thing happened to my great grand parents and my grand parents. Really? Wow! It usually happens when the couple's are really old, from what I've read. I've never actually known anyone that this happened to. When my elderly grandpa lost his 44 year old son a few years I thought it would kill him, but it didn't.. Us human's just usually have to go on and get through it, day to day, even if it's hard.
|
|
|
Post by iamjumbo on Mar 8, 2013 5:17:49 GMT -8
The same thing happened to my great grand parents and my grand parents. Really? Wow! It usually happens when the couple's are really old, from what I've read. I've never actually known anyone that this happened to. When my elderly grandpa lost his 44 year old son a few years I thought it would kill him, but it didn't.. Us human's just usually have to go on and get through it, day to day, even if it's hard. at 94, and having been together for 66 years, he didn't want to get through it
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2013 9:37:17 GMT -8
Really? Wow! It usually happens when the couple's are really old, from what I've read. I've never actually known anyone that this happened to. When my elderly grandpa lost his 44 year old son a few years I thought it would kill him, but it didn't.. Us human's just usually have to go on and get through it, day to day, even if it's hard. at 94, and having been together for 66 years, he didn't want to get through it None of us ever want to go through it regardless of age.
|
|
|
Post by iamjumbo on Mar 9, 2013 13:50:54 GMT -8
at 94, and having been together for 66 years, he didn't want to get through it None of us ever want to go through it regardless of age. that is true
|
|