LONGMEADOW, MASS. (WHDH) - The coronavirus outbreak has left devastation and heartbreak in its wake.
David and Muriel Cohen spent nearly every moment of their 77-years of marriage together, so when Muriel tested positive for the virus, they knew they would not be staying apart.
The Cohens made the decision to stay together until the very end — side-by-side in their Longmeadow nursing home.
Despite battling pneumonia himself, David never questioned staying by his wife’s side and inevitably contracted COVID-19 himself.
Their daughter, Fran Grosnick, had the final say in this difficult decision but for her, the answer was clear.
“I would not separate my parents,” she said. “I knew what they wanted, at all costs my mother and my father wanted to be together.”
It did not take long for their health to decline and their daughter was prohibited from visiting.
Last week, Grosnick received a call from the hospice nurse who informed her that both David and Muriel were slipping away.
“My only regret is that I cannot be there to hold my parents’ hand, and she told me, ‘Fran, I’m doing that for you,” Grosnick said. “She said, ‘I’m holding your father’s hand, I’m holding your mother’s hand, and I’m the bridge between them.”
David and Muriel were always together.
The only thing that separated them was World War II, when David went off to serve as an Army sergeant, eventually liberating Nazi concentration camps.
David’s experience and photographs were documented by Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation Institute.
He taught tens of thousands of students to “never hate.”
Last Friday, David died and 13 hours later, Muriel followed.
He was 102 years old and she was 97.
“I’m at peace that they are together,” Grosnick said. “I’m at peace somebody was holding their hand for me.”
For anyone looking to learn more about David’s time as a solider, click here.
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