Reunited with a treasured photo, central Pa. woman remembers lifelong love cut short

On the wood-paneled walls of Deb Carey’s home hangs a picture frame with two openings. In one is a photo of her and her husband, Dave. The other is filled with a photo of their hands holding one another – cut out from a (Hanover) Evening Sun story and taken at the 2013 Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival.

“(When the photo was published) we gave it to all of our kids and grandkids because it was so cool,” Deb said. “We looked at it and thought, ‘That’s us, we’re one, we’re always one.’”

Recently, a large, black-and-white version of the photo printed on metal canvas was delivered to Deb's home. As Deb remembers the couple's nearly 50-year storybook love story, she drops tales and moments each more surprising and hopelessly romantic than the next.

Deb and Dave grew up just doors away from each other in a small town on the western end of Cumberland County at the foot of South Mountain.

Even as children, Deb recognized something was different about them. Although they belonged to separate Bible study groups and youth groups, they found themselves casually going to the other’s groups just to spend time with each other.

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On some summer days, Deb would ride her bike past Dave’s house to catch a glimpse of him working outside shirtless – “just so I could see his muscles,” she said with a smirk. "I knew when he was out. (I'd think to myself) mmm my God."

Once, while Dave was digging holes for fence posts, Deb rode past hoping for another glimpse, but glanced a bit too long and wrecked her bike on a piece of raised macadam.

“I still have the scar on my chin,” she laughed.

There were other moments of innocent, love-induced trouble, too. Deb and Dave loved to go to the drive-in movies, but one time fell asleep while watching the film. They woke up just a few hours before sunrise – and sped off realizing they had blown well past Deb's curfew, taking the movie theater speaker with them in the process.

The couple became official when Deb was 14, got engaged in 1972 – Deb’s senior year – and married on April 14, 1973.

After a short spell in a Carlisle apartment – “we both hated it,” – the pair moved into a small summer cabin just north of Michaux State Forest. The house had no water and no heat, other than the fireplace. When Deb remembers the home at that time, she quips, “how’s that for love?” But in all reality, there was nowhere else she’d rather be.

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“We had the most beautiful time ever,” Deb said, fondly. “We were young and in love.”

Over the years, the life around that couple grew – the home transformed into a two-story house, and the pair had two children. So much happened around them, but Deb remembers the little things most -- like simply holding hands.

“When we were holding hands, I felt so sure of myself,” she said. “I felt so secure… like nothing in this world could hurt me because I had his hand in mine… Like I was the queen, we continued that no matter how old we were.

“Now, I don’t have that.”

In the early 2010s, Dave was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD – a lung disease that obstructs airflow to the lungs.

“We just talked about, ‘Why does this have to happen to us?’” Deb said.

Deb left her job of 35 years to help take care of Dave, but also to take advantage of every moment she could with her love. They scratched an item off the bucket list with a trip to Sedona, Arizona, but signs of the disease were present.

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Dave refused to travel with the oxygen tank that helped him breathe, and while transferring planes, passed out in the airport. He was OK, but as proud as he was, he knew the oxygen tank, and eventually a scooter, were needed.

But it didn't stop them.

They bought an RV in 2014, and took a trip down to Key West, making several stops along the way.

In August 2015, the couple took their RV to the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival. It was a semi-annual trip for them for nearly two decades – bluegrass was their favorite music.

“On Sundays we’d get wood, and we played bluegrass on the TV,” Deb said. “He’d be using the ax, then I’d start dancing, then he’d join me. That’s how we were.”

Deb still remembers the few days leading up to Dave’s death.

After battling COPD for years, the disease had taken its toll. On one September night while watching Big Brother, Deb got up to grab Dave some ice cream. Soon after he ate it, Dave said he was feeling sick, and started throwing up blood.

This was, a hospice nurse told her, the beginning of the end.

Over the next few days, friends and family came to see Dave – each finding a chance to say goodbye, but it didn’t sink in for Deb.

“I didn’t accept it because I just thought he was going to get better,” she said. “I didn’t think that was going to happen. I just still felt like he was going to pull out of that.”

On Sept. 9, 2015, Deb was at Dave’s side.

“We were holding hands and I could see him taking his last breaths,” Deb said.

“I was yelling, ‘Dave, Dave’ and he was just going and I couldn’t bring him back.”

The days after his death are just as vivid -- like his funeral where she requested their favorite love songs “Always” and “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” by Willie Nelson. Or the day after as she sat in the foyer and cried her eyes out.

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Deb said she still feels alone.

“I have my kids, but it’s not your partner, your soul,” she explained. “He’s part of me. He’s still part of me.”

It's been nearly two-and-a-half years since Dave’s death, and Deb still struggles. Sometimes, she’ll walk into the house and see him sitting in the foyer. His voicemails – some nothing more than an upbeat “hi babe” – are saved in her phone. Every now and then, she’ll drive down the road, visit his grave site and have a beer.

Sometime before Dave’s death, the couple was on the porch looking at the RV when Dave told Deb, “Babe, I can see you taking this RV out yourself when I’m not here.”

Deb replied, “No way, not in this lifetime.”

She’s since taken the RV on trips, with Dave’s hat and a DVD of "The Notebook" – the last movie they watched together – hanging off the rearview mirror.

“When you think back, he knew that I could drive that RV myself,” she said. “I didn’t have that confidence in myself at all, but yet, I did it. I feel like he’s with me.”

In some ways, he still is.

In the year or so after his death, Deb made Dave’s memory permanent with a pair of tattoos – a pair of blue bell flowers that come up just above her right ankle and the phrase “Someday we’ll be together” written on her left forearm.

Dave had planted blue bells off the deck of their home just before his death. And the meaning of the quote? Well, at the time, Deb wasn’t sure where it was from. It just felt right.

It's the title of a Supremes hit – a song the couple loved – but only recently did Deb figure out where it really came from.

While cleaning out the house and perusing her Big Spring High School 1972 yearbook, she saw the description below her name. There was the usual listing of clubs, but above them all was one phrase – “Someday We’ll Be Together.”

And someday, they will. Until then, Deb reflects on the many moments they did have in more than 45 years – everything from the trips they took in his final months to the small moments like holding hands – even holding his hand as he took his last breaths.

“I will never forget that,” Deb said. “We were one soul, one body…We started out as one, and we left as one. Part of me went with him that day.”

Anthony J. Machcinski is a reporter for the York Daily Record. Follow him on Facebook, @ChinskiTweets on Twitter or email him at amachcinski@ydr.com.