Couple Married For 62 Years Dies Hours Apart [Audio]

It’s a love story that may remind you of a Hollywood movie, but it's real, and it’s the life of a man and woman whose love for each other was on display until the day they died.

It's the ending of "The Notebook" playing out in real life. 

Don and Maxine Simpson were young and beautiful when they met more than six decades ago, and after they married 62 years ago, family and friends knew them as a couple that loved their family, loved life and adventure, but most of all, loved each other.

It’s absolutely beautiful, and the story is beautiful,” says their granddaughter Melissa Sloan.  “All he wanted was to be with his beautiful wife. He adored my grandmother, loved her to the end of the Earth.”  More recently, Maxine had been living at home and struggling with cancer for some time – and then two weeks ago, Don fell and broke his hip.

He wasn’t doing well – so his family did the one thing they new they had to: they got him home to his Maxine. As Melissa explains it, “Gram woke up and saw him, and held hands and they knew that they were next to each other.” And that’s how these two sweethearts left this earth. Within days, Don took a turn for the worse – so did Maxine. And when she passed away – he followed her four hours later. “It’s just amazing," says Melissa. "It really is amazing.  It’s a true love story.”  Indeed, it is.

Audio via ABC 23 Bakersfield