When Alice Krenke had to go into the hospital due to complications from a heart-valve transplant, she was separated from her husband of nearly 60 years, Jerry Krenke.
The couple from Stratford, Connecticut, have three children and six grandchildren and had never been apart for more than a week before her hospitalization.
Because of the risks of coronavirus, they were not allowed to see each other.
Nearly 90, a married couple separated by COVID reuniteWhen Alice learned that she'd be released, the family got together to surprise grandpa Jerry. The family shared the emotional reunion about three weeks ago on granddaughter Paige Hine's Tik Tok account Pineconepaige. In the video, when Alice appears in the doorway, Jerry is momentarily stunned.
"You're kidding?" he says. "My God. You didn't tell me."
"On purpose," she says as the two embrace and Jerry begins to cry.
"Oh, honey... I missed you so much," Jerry tells her. "How you feeling? You feeling OK?"
"I'm better now," she says.
Then, the two kiss.
In a video that Hine shared with ABC News on Tuesday, Alice relived the moment the two met, after she'd asked a minister to invite him to fellowship. He had just arrived to town with his parents for a job, she said.
Alice and Jerry said they talked into the night before she called her mother to ask whether Jerry could bring her home.
"Shock of all shocks, she said, 'Yes,'" Alice said, explaining that her mother was very protective. "And she liked him immediately, as did my dad, which was amazing."
Couple married for 72 years reunites after 57 daysThe two started dating and eventually became engaged. She was 17 and he was 20.
"'Would you like to be the wife of an engineer?'" she said he asked her.
Hine, their granddaughter, ended the video on Tik Tok with the message: "This is what true love looks like."
She told ABC News on Tuesday that she'd shared the video on social media because of her family's love for the couple and for her grandparents to have.