14 DAY TRIAL // A South Florida couple married for 45 years died within minutes of each other on Saturday, bringing a romantic end to their life together.
Naomi Shirley, from Southwest Ranches, Florida, received a call from the hospital saying her husband was in trouble, and she was reportedly on her way to visit him when she suffered a heart attack.
Tom Shirley, 83, had been taken to the Cleveland Clinic on Saturday afternoon due to some heart problems. Tom passed away before Naomi could arrive, but Naomi never made it to the hospital, anyway. This way, the couple embarked on their final adventure together.
“Dad didn't know that she had passed, and she didn't know that he had passed. I don't understand it, but it's beautiful,” Troy Shirley, one of the couple's three sons, said to the Sun Sentinel.
“He never knew she left and she never knew he was gone, but both left within 10 to 12 minutes of each other,” Melanie Davis, the couple's daughter, added.
Their children say that the couple met more than four decades ago, when she was working at a drug store, and did everything together.
Tom Shirley worked for 30 years as a lieutenant for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and was very popular among Everglades supporters, while her 75-year-old wife Naomi was a retired nurse.
“He lived to protect the Everglades. He kind of molded us into what he did and we passed that on to our kids as well,” Tommy Shirley said.
Tom didn't abandon Everglades, a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, after retiring in 1985. He offered transportation services to the Everglades for government and environmental groups and worked with movie producers who were shooting in the area. During his retirement years, the former game warden also wrote a book about his time patrolling the Everglades for dangerous alligators, poachers and moonshiners.
“My mother loved fishing and the outdoors life and he was a game warden and that's what attracted them to each other. They both liked the same things,” Tommy added.
The couple are survived by four children and eight grandchildren.
Similar stories of elderly couples dying together were reported in the past. In 2012, a Pennsylvania couple together for 65 years died just 88 minutes apart, while a Florida couple who had been married for more than six decades died within minutes of each other.