A widow cannot bear life alone. Can you love someone too much?

Charlye Kate Davenport, my godmother, passed away on Easter Sunday. But life ended for her eight years ago.

That’s when Kate’s beloved husband, Leo, died.

It has been found that the romantic bond between two people can be so intense that once broken, it can kill. Over the years, researchers have documented many cases of husbands and wives, and parents and their children dying shortly after one another.

In Kate’s mind, death could not come fast enough. Her debilitating grief lasted for years, gradually sucking up her will to live. Other medical conditions eventually caused her demise, but grief, most certainly, was a contributing factor.

Kate’s death has made me ponder what it means to love. Is it possible to love too deeply, to become too much a part of someone else? Could a marriage built on a love so strong that it cripples be as unhealthy as a marriage where there is too little love?

As love stories go, Kate and Leo’s was among the most sincere I have ever known. Their marriage was not perfect, but it was a partnership that worked perfectly for them. Their mutual respect and depth of caring for each other were obvious to anyone in their presence. They were a couple, in every sense of the word.

Kate and Leo were so much a part of each other that even their names became intertwined. It seemed unnatural to speak of one without speaking of the other. “Kate and Leo” is who they were.

When they stepped out, their outfits were color-coordinated. They seemed to know each other’s thoughts without speaking a word. And in public, at least, they were always in agreement.

The couple met as teenagers in our small town of Hogansville, Ga., though Leo lived in a town a few miles away. They began dating the summer after graduating high school and married on Christmas Day 1957. Leo was in the Air Force, and Kate was a freshman in college.

She had once been a successful career woman, the manager of vocational programs for the Atlanta Jobs Corps Center. But as the years went on, she seemed to lose more of her independence. She chose to be a diva, and Leo accommodated her.

He did the cooking, the cleaning, the driving and the grocery shopping, though she loved shopping for everything else. They desperately wanted children, but each pregnancy ended in miscarriage. So she lovingly called him “daddy” and he called her “mama.”

My family lived next door to Kate’s parents. That’s how we became close. She loved to tell the story of how I, as a toddler, would squeeze between her and Leo on the couch when they wanted to be alone.

She spoke as though I had been a nuisance, but she always ended the story with a chuckle, signaling that she adored me as much as I have always adored her.

It seemed natural that the couple would ask me years ago to take responsibility for Kate if Leo died and she became unable to care for herself. I happily signed the papers, never thinking for a minute that Kate, who seemed rather frail next to her strong, athletic Leo, would outlive her husband.

After Leo’s sudden death from a stroke in the middle of the night in 2010, Kate, though only 73, began to need more and more assistance. She sold her home and moved into an assisted living facility, where she resided for five years.

During that time, the Kate we used to know — so full of life and energy — became more and more distant. Occasionally, we would see a glimpse of her funny side, but it did not last for long. Her mind was still sharp, and so was her tongue, but to our dismay that started to work against her.

Still, she took on the causes of several residents who were unable to think for themselves. And she loved the attention and authority that came with standing up for those who needed her help. But even in those strong moments, the memory of lost love tortured her.

Kate could not engage in conversation without somehow drifting into mourning for Leo. Her friends accommodated her at first, but they grew weary of her constant chant, “I want to go and be with Leo.”

That was what she wanted most, the only place she felt she could be at peace.

So on that Easter Sunday, she lay in her bed at a hospice facility in Atlanta, closed her eyes and died. Her face was more peaceful than it had looked in years.

No one really knows what happens to people when they die. But for Kate’s sake, I hope that she went where she has long wanted to be. Reunited with Leo and happy once again.