Yvonne Abraham: True companions

Yvonne Abraham: True companions
By YVONNE ABRAHAM, Boston Globe
February 2, 2009

BROCKTON, MASS. - They met in 1947, at the Kresge's store on Main Street. Joe Norek managed the restaurant. Dot Whiting waited tables.

He'd just spent five years as a Navy cook. He was done with war and boats and being alone. They were both 37.

He was Catholic and she was Episcopalian, and neither was interested in going over to the other side. So they said "till death do us part" twice: first in a Protestant church, then in a Catholic one.
And every Sunday, Joe went to Mass at St. Patrick's and Dot attended services at Trinity Episcopal in Stoughton.

They made a good life together. Dot was crazy about bowling and bingo. Joe loved to park himself in his beat-up turquoise recliner, listening to the Red Sox and Benny Goodman.
They saw Niagara Falls and Amish country together. They loved salty food and Lawrence Welk and "Guiding Light."

In their 40s and 50s, they raised their daughter, Laurie, her arrival a miracle after a string of miscarriages. In their 70s and 80s, they helped raise their grandson Brian, after Laurie's marriage ended.

The decades piled up, and still Joe and Dot were walking around the neighborhood. Their 90th birthdays came and went. Longevity made their sweet, unremarkable relationship into something miraculous.

Joe knew how lucky he was that his wife had chosen him, but Laurie had never heard him say it out loud. Not until a few years ago, when Dot got frail. It began with a broken hip, then came strokes, then heart congestion. Dot moved to a nursing home. Joe went to see her every day. I love you, he told her, again and again.

A year ago, Joe got frail, too: He was in and out of hospitals, recuperating in the same nursing home as his wife, his bed a room away from hers.

A few weeks ago, as Dot's life was ebbing away, Joe contracted pneumonia. He died on Monday at 6 p.m. He was 98.

Laurie and Brian went to see Dot the next day. She had pneumonia, too. It's OK to go be with Pop, Laurie told her.

And so, on Tuesday at noon, Dot died too.

Maybe Dot was just waiting for Joe to go before she did, as her minister said at the service, where both Catholic and Episcopal clergy prayed. Maybe Dot wanted to spare her family the suffering of grieving twice, as Laurie believes. Maybe the way they left this world, just 18 hours apart, is a miracle, as Brian sees it.

Two coffins draped in white sat side by side at St Patrick's church. Not even in death did they part.

© 2009 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.