They were married 61 years. Here's the story behind the last photo ever taken of them.

Mar. 16—There were moments in recent years when Deborah Goodman felt like her parents were living on borrowed time, kept alive almost improbably by both the wonders of modern medicine and a team of first-rate physicians.

Yet, there also were moments when Deborah felt like her mom and her stepfather were doing quite well all things considered, and might be able to keep on ticking for still a little bit longer. They got their first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine at the end of January.

Then there was the moment three Sundays ago, on the date Arthur and Carole Heisler had been scheduled to get their second shots, when Arthur laid in bed suffering from the coronavirus with his wife of 61 years at his side.

And at that particular moment, Deborah felt like taking some photographs.

"I just started snapping," recalls the 68-year-old Lake Wylie, S.C., resident. "I wasn't sure if it was appropriate. I just didn't know if that was an invasion of privacy. I felt sensitive about that. But the moments they were having together were so poignant to me that I wanted to capture them for myself."

One particular scene stood out to her: In it, her stepfather lay on his back with his head propped up on a pillow while her mother — who herself had contracted only a mild case of COVID — lay on her stomach with her nose nuzzled into his chest. They are locked in an embrace, him cradling her head and her elbow, with his gaze fixed on something out of the frame; her clinging to his arm, with her eyes tightly shut.

The following morning, on March 1, Arthur died with Carole by his side. He was 95.

Though initially hesitant to do so, Deborah says, "I showed that photo to a couple of my best friends, and to my stepsister. They were so moved by it, they encouraged me to share it. So I did."

Deborah decided to share her photo with the Observer because she says she's watched "with great emotion" short stories on CNN about COVID victims and their families and felt the image she took "showed a similar story in a more dramatic, gentle, artistic way."

This is the story behind it.

From humble beginnings

Arthur and Carole were married in 1960, when he was in his mid-30s and she was in her late 20s.

It was the second marriage for both of them. The four children Arthur had with his first wife went to live with their mother, while Carole's three children — Deborah, who was 7 when her mother remarried, and her younger brothers Stephen and Gregory — would be raised by Arthur and Carole.

At the time, Arthur was stationed at what then was called Orlando Air Force Base (on the land that today operates as Orlando Executive Airport) in Florida, while Carole worked as a legal secretary.

Neither came from money, and financially they struggled. But they hatched a plan for their future together that started with real estate. When they were able, they bought a small, rundown house and enlisted all three children to help with the enormous task of fixing it up. Eventually, they bought and did the same thing with another. Then another. And another.

"We all painted, we all labored on these houses, we all took care of them," Deborah recalls, while her mother and stepfather "became a team. My mother was the brain, the financial wizard, money manager. My father was a jack-of-all-trades, and the workaholic." He also, handily, was a master electrician.

"Together, in their entire careers, they never earned more than $40,000 combined between the two of them," Deborah continues. "They lived frugally. But my mother did some very wise stock investing, and they made their money in real estate. I don't even know how many properties they ended up with."

She does know this, however: Arthur and Carole would become multimillionaires.

Their lifelong promise

Back when her parents were still struggling, around the time she was in college, Deborah remembers her mother's mother being put in a nursing home as her health declined.

The facility was a "dreadful" place, Deborah recalls, but she says her family didn't have the capability to care for her at their own home because they both worked, and didn't have the money to pay for a more suitable living situation. Deborah's grandmother died alone, in the nursing home.

As a result of that episode, Arthur and Carole asked Deborah and her then-teenage brothers to make them two promises:

The first was that they would not put them in an institution. The second was that they would not allow them to die apart from each other.

Deborah and her brothers promised.

The first promise, actually, would wind up being relatively easy to keep — after Arthur and Carole amassed their fortune, they were able to afford a good long-term care insurance policy and made arrangements that would keep them at home even if they needed skilled nursing care.

So, even in recent years, as they watched their friends pass on or transition to assisted-living situations, the couple continued living on their own. They lived in the independent-living section of a senior living community in Dilworth for years, then in 2017 moved to a new one in south Charlotte, again in an independent-living unit.

Certainly, though, their overall health was becoming more tenuous. Arthur had become prone to falls, and Carole had been struggling with dementia. On top of that, it was a constant challenge to try to keep them safe during the pandemic as they navigated visits to doctor's appointments and unanticipated hospitalizations for various ailments over the course of the winter.

But on Jan. 31, when they both received their first doses of the Moderna vaccination at Bank of America Stadium, Deborah breathed a sigh of relief.

"Because the place where they live — the independent-living facility — had gone on quarantine several times during the pandemic, and so we finally felt like, 'Wow, they're protected.'"

That feeling would not last.

A turn for the worse

The downward spiral started on Feb. 22, when Carole was hospitalized due to intestinal problems. Two days later, she tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Arthur had been generally feeling wiped out and was sleeping much more than usual, so as soon as Carole's results came back, Deborah took him to a drive-through testing site. He tested positive, too.

At that point, two things happened in fairly rapid sequence:

First, almost immediately, Deborah summoned hospice to his home to evaluate her stepfather, whose condition seemed to be worsening by the hour. Hospice arrived, checked his vitals and examined him, and informed Deborah that he probably only had days left.

Second, Deborah started working to make good on that other lifelong promise she'd made to her parents.

'She cozied up with him'

Though Carole's COVID symptoms had been mild, she was suffering a severe case of hospital-induced delirium, a condition that people who already have dementia are at higher risk of acquiring.

But Deborah was able to get her mother discharged after Arthur's hospice workers assured the hospital that Carole would be under their constant care in the couple's home.

"When she got home from the hospital," Deborah says, "she sat with my dad, hugged him, then she immediately went to sleep — and slept for 48 hours straight."

She was in their bed, while Arthur was in his recliner, also doing almost nothing but sleeping for those next two days. Deborah and her siblings now sensed that the end was near for both of their parents.

"Then all of a sudden," Deborah says, "Mom just popped back, and became alert, started sitting with Dad, talking to him, helping take care of him — as much as she could. Feeding him when he was awake. ... I mean, she was like her old self. It was very strange. Started eating and walking and talking and making sense and everything.

"But he was very out of it, and not awake much. So hospice moved him from his recliner into his bed — into their bed — and she cozied up with him."

It was then that Deborah took out her iPhone, stood at the foot of their bed, and started taking pictures.

The picture-perfect moment

The moment was brief.

Arthur stirred, and when he did, Carole kissed him.

"'Hey sweetheart. It's your Honey. I'm right here,'" Deborah recalls her mom saying. "He opened his eyes and he put his arms around her, and he said, 'Hi, Honey. You need to get your hair done.' And she said, 'That's what you have to say to me?'"

Deborah laughs when she tells this story. But at that moment, when she was standing there with her iPhone held up in front of her face, she was crying. A home health aide was in the room, and she was crying, too.

"I think what I was feeling the most was just the beauty of their devotion to each other. Their bond. And the way that even though my father was so weak, and had been so non-responsive for so many days, he responded to my mother like that. He knew it was her. And he responded to her the way he did, with his hand on the back of her head and cradling her like that."

"They had been separated over the past five years, at different times, when one of them or the other had been hospitalized," Deborah continued. "I remember at one time my father had a very bad fall. He was hospitalized, then he had to go to a rehab facility for 30 days. And my mother was without him. It was so difficult for them to be separated. One day when I took her to visit him at the rehab center, I went down the hallway and I came back, and she had crawled in bed with him. They were just lying there holding each other and talking. So when I took that photo, it reminded me of that moment. Their bond was just so close. It just reminded me of that.

"Also, I felt like ... they were really trying to say goodbye to each other."

Arthur's eyes were open, she says, only briefly. After telling Carole she needed to see a hairdresser, he didn't form any other words that Deborah could discern. The whole interaction lasted maybe 45 seconds — a minute at most.

The photo was taken sometime between 3 and 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 28.

At 9:15 the next morning, Arthur took his final breath.

'A huge sense of relief'

Deborah believes her stepfather worried about how her mother would cope without him.

But in the first several days after he passed, Deborah says, Carole was lucid and continuing to act like her old self: "Eating, laughing, telling jokes ... just a lot of fun." Deborah showed her mother the photo she took, and Carole loved it. "I mean, over-the-moon loved it. She was so thankful that I captured that moment."

And then last Tuesday morning, Carole woke up and was having significant difficulty breathing, so she was rushed back to the hospital — where the delirium returned. "It's excruciating," Deborah says of seeing her mother in that state. "She was just completely nonsensical. I mean, really bad. Really bad. Trying to eat the wrong things ... and all kinds of strange stuff."

At one point, though, Carole seemed to have a moment of clarity. "'Honey, I'm so sorry, but without Dad I just really want to give up,'" Deborah recalls her mother telling her.

Again, Deborah and her family felt the end might be near.

Again, they kept their lifelong promise and brought her home, into hospice care.

This past Saturday, 12 days after Arthur's death, Carole died of health problems unrelated to the virus. She was 89.

That's two obituaries to write, two funerals to plan, and two lives to start trying to close out in a span of just two weeks. But when the dust does finally settle, Deborah plans to have the photo printed, framed, and placed either on a dresser or by her bed.

What does she feel when she looks at the photo? She pauses, carefully considering her answer.

"This is something I have been dreading for a long time, because I'm very close to them. But after my dad passed, I really, really did feel a huge sense of relief because he was not suffering any longer." And when her mother died, Deborah says, she felt the same relief. "She always said, 'The worst thing would be to lose my mind and make a fool out of myself.'"

"So when you ask what I feel when I look at the picture, at first it was great sadness. But it's not now. Now —"

She pauses once more, drawing a breath in and then exhaling.

"Now it's more a feeling of peace."

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