Dad

David Edward Deinlein
1951-2019

Once, Dad was speaking to a family member at some gathering and said he was proud of me. I happened to overhear.

He was talking about my job as a reporter in Hanover, Pa. He noted that while he wished I'd gone into a line of work that might have provided a more comfortable salary, he said he realized that what I was doing meant something as he began to see my byline atop stories on the paper's website, or when I'd bring down editions on visits home to Kingsville, Md.

Though his views on my profession weren't always positive, he knew that I liked what I was doing and was glad that I felt I was making a difference in this world.

And so, it's fitting perhaps that the last time I spoke to him was Oct. 2, 2019, from the old pressroom of my newspaper, of which I had become the managing editor not long before. It's the old pressroom because the printing press was dismantled and sold a decade earlier. The space is now an event venue, with hints at the deadlines and spilled ink covered with faux wood flooring and flat gray paint.

It was just after noon when I called him in his hospital room. He was there for treatment after his second heart attack in 18 months. Though his voice was weak, he seemed in good spirits. He joked about the nurses not letting him have potato chips.

I told him about work — an industry under pressure from all sides. I bragged about my daughters, how smart they were for their ages and how talented they were in art. I could hear a smile in his voice.

On that Wednesday afternoon, I told him that I'd be down to see him on Friday. I'd already spoken with Mom earlier and made the plan. With work and other obligations, it would be easier that day.

As we were hanging up, my finger poised above the red button of my iPhone, I thought I should say, "Hey, Dad, I love you." But it was too late. My thumb was already on the screen, and I'm pretty sure Dad had put his receiver down, too. He died two hours later.

Dad circa 2010, feeling no pain
at a family wedding.

To be fair, we rarely expressed love to each other. When I was a teenager, attending a high-school retreat, he wrote me a letter at the behest of the retreat organizers. He and my mom were asked to express how they felt about me. He noted that our heritage is Czech, German and English — three nationalities not exactly known for their warmth.

But he said that he tried to show his love and pride by providing me opportunities. I went to Catholic grade school, high school and college. I was taken to historic sites in and around my hometown of Baltimore. We had a computer and printer, and I had a car when I was 16, albeit one that had seen happier times. I was able to attend summer enrichment programs at local colleges while in grade school, and went to a young journalist confab in D.C. when I was in high school. All the while, he often worked 12-hour days or longer in an industry also known for being under pressure.

Now, looking back at that last moment I spoke to him, wishing I'd been able to say, "I love you," I hope he knew.

My brothers, my father and I on my wedding day.

I hope he knew I was proud of him and that I appreciated him working himself to death for me, my brothers and our mother. I hope he knew that his love for me was embodied in my being able to do something I enjoyed and that I thought made a difference in this world.

Even though I'm a writer by trade, I couldn't bring myself to put into words the thoughts that have been swirling since October. 

So on this, my first Father's Day without him, I want it known that I loved him, was proud of him, and hope I can be half the father he was.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Amen.

'Prepare yourself'

Bernard and Marie Deinlein's children: David, Helen, Bernie and Joan in 2014.

It had been almost two years since I had seen my cousin, Sue.

As I walked onto the deck of my aunt and uncle's cabin in the mountains outside Berkeley Springs, W.Va., I gave her a hug.

"Prepare yourself," she whispered in my ear. "Prepare yourself."

I knew going to see Aunt Joan would be hard.

Two weeks earlier, I'd learned that my father's oldest sister was in the intensive care unit with pneumonia. After being on a ventilator and a cocktail of drugs, one bodily system after another was failing her.

"When they'd correct one problem, it would cause another," said my cousin, Kathy, Sue's sister. "The doctor said that every day, there was a new life-threatening problem they'd have to correct."

Aunt Joan was independent. She didn't like the fact that my Uncle Carle had to help her move about their home after she suffered a stroke a few years ago. There also were several falls and broken bones, limiting her mobility further.

But that independence is what made Joan one of my favorite relatives. I always looked forward to seeing her. She was full of stories and jokes and laughter. And she loved to hear good stories and jokes and laughter, too.

Much of her time was spent in the garden, finding different ways to grow vegetables and to keep the critters out. At Christmas each year, once you turned 21, you no longer received a card with money. You earned one of her black walnut cakes, made with nuts grown at the cabin.

Even she referred to them as "door stops," but we discovered their slices made good French toast.

She'd share deep conversations on philosophical topics, including but not limited to spirituality and what happens to the soul when it leaves the body.

She found peace in nature and joy in the garden.

It wasn't a surprise to me when Kathy said Aunt Joan didn't want to be kept alive by machinery. It would be OK for a little while, but if it became obvious that things weren't improving, she wanted to be taken off.

Meanwhile, Aunt Joan continued to tell anyone who would listen: "I want to go home. I want to go home."

Kathy told me how she explained to her mother that she couldn't go home because she was sick. Finally, at one point, Joan appeared to understand.

"I told her, 'You can't go home because Dad can't take care of you there,'" Kathy said.

She went from feisty to being calm and resigned.

"The fight just went out of her," my cousin said.

When it became clear there was nothing more medical science could do for her — not without a tracheotomy, feeding tube and dialysis — Kathy, Sue and Uncle Carle made arrangements to bring Aunt Joan home. Her bed faced the sliding glass doors, looking out onto 17 acres of West Virginia wilderness.

As I walked through the screen door into what had been her home office, there was my aunt, her eyes half open, her mouth agape as she struggled to breathe, an oxygen tube in her nose.

Kathy, Sue and Uncle Carle said that, sometimes, Aunt Joan's eyes would flicker when you'd speak to her. There'd be a brief moment of what seemed like recognition.

But then it was gone.

I leaned in close to her.

"Hi, Aunt Joan," I said. "How are you doing?"

As soon as I said that, I realized how dumb it was to say.

I sat in the rocker next to her bed, patted her hand and talked with the family. They said how it seemed to them to have taken a long time for things to come to this, but really, it had only been two weeks.

Too many long days.

Shortly before I had to leave for work, my mom, dad and youngest brother, Stephen, arrived.

I knew this was a hard time for Dad, who was the baby of the family. He was more than a decade younger than Aunt Joan. Her son, my cousin, Carle, who died of cancer more than 20 years ago, was not much younger than Dad.

Joan was closest to Dad emotionally out of all the siblings. Put the two of them together, it was a party.

So when he walked in and sat down next to his dying sister, he looked ashen.

Despite Sue's advice, that was the part for which I was not prepared.

I had only ever seen my father cry twice in my life: When his dog died and when the Colts left Baltimore. Both happened when I was 5.

On that Saturday before Mother's Day 2016, I saw the third time.

And so I had to leave for work. I shook hands and gave hugs to the family.

Then I leaned in to Aunt Joan.

"Hey Aunt Joan," I said, touching her shoulder. "I have to leave.

"I will see you later."

Her eyes flickered.

"I love you," I said, then kissed her forehead.

It was in that moment that I realized it was the first — and last — time I had ever told her that I loved her.

We German English Bohunks aren't known for our warmth, Dad once told me.

I've discovered we're also not always the brightest, particularly when it comes to family relationships.

I said goodbye to everyone again and left.

Aunt Joan died the next morning. Dad called to tell me.

"She didn't exactly have a strong faith in God," he said, his voice low and gravelly, "but she was a good lady. And that's really what matters most in this world."

Rest easy, Aunt Joan. I think you prepared yourself well for whatever comes when the soul leaves the body.