A final embrace: Nurse gives husband and wife final moments together

When a woman was facing her final hours of life and her husband wanted one last embrace and moment together, staff at UCHealth Parkview Medical Center (PMC) worked together to make it happen.

Recently, an elderly female patient was admitted to a unit in the hospital where Taylor Romero, associate nurse manager of oncology at PMC, was working.

After the elderly patient took a sudden downturn, she was moved to Parkview’s intensive care unit. Her husband also happened to be in the hospital that day to receive treatment for a different illness.

One of the couple’s sons happened to personally know Romero. He told her what was going on with his parents. His father, dealing with Alzheimer’s, was being cared for on Romero’s floor while his mother was in intensive care.

“The family wanted to see if we could get her husband up there to ICU because he never forgot his beautiful wife,” Romero said. “I took the patient up to ICU because our nurses are so busy, so I wanted to make sure they were able to focus on their patients and being that I don’t have a load of patients every day I took her up so they could focus.”

Once the husband was transported to the ICU to see his wife, they spent about 3.5 hours together. They were holding hands, talking and sharing what would be one final kiss. Several other family members also were present.

“He was pretty weak, but we were able to get him to stand up. We put the side rail down, we told his wife what we were doing,” Romero said. “He got to spend time not only with her but his family. His family was very thankful, very appreciative, very easy to work with through it all.”

His wife passed away not long after that gathering, within a day, according to Romero.

Romero said she will always remember the husband and his wife’s last embrace fondly.

“He knew his wife was going to pass and she wasn’t going to be there and so that was very important for him to be able to hold her hand, to sit there with her in his wheelchair,” Romero said. “We didn’t rush him. We would take any medications he needed to him. As long as he was safe, we were OK with him being up there.

“The ICU team assisted with any needs. The fact that we all can work as a team and get something like that done, to me, is very special. Not just for us but for the family first and foremost and they remember it.”

The family was so moved that they invited Romero, who has been leading worship at a local church for years, to sing at the woman’s funeral.

Eight months later, the husband passed away and Romero was invited to sing at his funeral as well.

For both funerals, she sang “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone).”