‘Their bond was unshakable.’ Fresno County couple died days apart after 37 years together
A funeral planned for one soon became a funeral for two this winter when a devoted husband followed his wife in death.
Larry and Sue Loring of Fresno County died just 10 days apart after being “blissfully married for 37 years,” said Faye Loring, Larry’s mother.
Alzheimer’s disease took Sue’s life. Dementia finally left her unable to eat. Larry died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes.
“He fought so hard to hold on for so long,” Summer Worsham said of Larry’s death. “He was in a lot of pain. I feel like once he knew Grammy was OK and she wasn’t suffering ... he finally felt he could go.”
Worsham was among many who grew up feeling like adopted grandchildren of the Lorings, including her brother, Chris Owen.
“Their bond was unshakable and always had unconditional love for each other,” he said. “No one had a relationship like they did. They were best friends from the start.”
Sue met Larry as a neighbor of one of his cousins. Their Christian faith became central to their lives and love.
Family and friends fondly recall how the couple would drive a large group of neighborhood kids to church every Sunday. Many became part of their family. Larry and Sue served as foster parents to several outside their own blended family that included two sons from Sue’s first marriage and a couple granddaughters.
“The Lorings are the epitome of a loving relationship that we really idealized growing up, and what you imagine and what you hope for, you know?” Worsham said. “They were the first real positive people that were not just together, but married, that I knew growing up.”
She has many sweet memories of “Grammy” and “Papa.”
“Grammy was so funny,” she recalled. “She would talk about how handsome he was and how muscular.”
Larry’s love was on display in some Facebook posts, including a meme he shared of a boy and girl carrying a basket of flowers together with the words, “Love is deaf. You can’t just tell someone you love them. You have to show it.”
The couple ran a Clovis citrus farm for about 35 years with Larry’s parents. Sue also worked as a seamstress and loved gardening and cooking. Larry was a parachutist in the U.S. Air Force as a young man who later became a pilot on his free time. He was also a leader of the Freemason fraternal organization in Fresno, and was working to become a minister, his mother Faye said.
Their marriage was successful because “they loved God first and they put God first,” Worsham said, “and everything else, they said, would just flow out from there.”
Larry read Sue passages from the Bible during their last visit together, a few days before she died.
“He was sitting there beside her bed reading these scriptures to her, and he should have been in a hospital right alongside her,” said Larry’s eldest sister, Julia Loring. “When he did pass, he was in the same hospice, in the same room that she had passed in.”
In the final months of their lives, Larry was being cared for by his parents at their Clovis home while Sue remained in their Fresno apartment. Worsham lived next door and looked after Sue between visits from Larry.
Sue was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a couple years ago. She remembered her husband’s name until nearly the very end, Worsham said. She died the day after their wedding anniversary.
“He grieved really hard for her,” Julia said. “It seemed like he was holding on real strong until she passed and then it all just overcame him.”
Larry died Dec. 16. Sue died Dec. 6. He was 67 and she was 74. They were buried in the same plot together on Dec. 21 at the Clovis District Cemetery.
Worsham said she learned a lesson about love by watching them overcome challenges together: “It’s always a choice.”
“And you choose – even on the good days, even on the bad days – you choose to love that person,” Worsham said. “You choose to not throw it away. You choose to keep going with them.”
They found happiness in their choices.
“I don’t think any marriage is a storybook anymore,” Julia said. “They overcame a lot and in the very end, they were truly close and they truly loved each other.”
