The love Janet and Don Steinbach shared was so deep that he only became truly angry at his wife once - on her deathbed.

"I wish you'd had a healthier wife," Mrs. Steinbach said as she looked up at her husband midway through her 14-day terminal hospital stay in January 2023. Breathing once a minute toward the end, her lungs rigid from interstitial pneumonia, she thought of him and not of her imminent passing.

That's when Mr. Steinbach felt his blood pressure rise.

"Don't you ever say that to me again. You are a gift; you are my heart and soul," he recalled crying out at the time. "It's my love for you that has kept me with you and will keep me with you forever."

Since meeting in 1981, the Steinbachs were an "inseparable team," he said. "We did everything together - fishing, camping, motorcycle trips - it didn't matter. As her condition worsened, she would lie down for a few hours. She'd struggle without showing it and I'd simply lie with her."

Mrs. Steinbach worked as a bookkeeper and an accountant for more than 25 years and was instrumental in developing an accounting program for a Dallasarea IT company. Mr. Steinbach worked as a senior IT project manager for companies across Texas, including Dell Technologies and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Until Mrs. Steinbach's final stay in the hospital, the Steinbachs consulted UT Southwestern physicians, and were patients on practically a quarterly basis - first after her UTSW doctor diagnosed an underlying pulmonary hypertension and then later with her rheumatoid arthritis. Mr. Steinbach said UT Southwestern was able to get access to medications and treatments that were simply unavailable to them in regional health care facilities in Georgetown, Texas, where they lived - extending his wife's life by at least three years, he estimated.

To help others suffering from rheumatology-related interstitial lung disease - a serious complication of rheumatoid arthritis - and to honor the memory of his beloved wife, Mr. Steinbach is funding an endowment at UT Southwestern named the Janet L. Steinbach Fund in Interstitial Lung Disease Research.

Mr. Steinbach's hope is that UTSW doctors and researchers will someday cure rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the joints - and, in some cases, the lungs.

"If my support helps find a cure, that would be awesome," Mr. Steinbach said. "Arthritis can be very complex and debilitating, and people often don't realize how it can involve the lungs. So, if there is a cure - while it's too late for Janet - that would be fantastic."

The Rheumatic Diseases Division of the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern is already advancing the understanding of rheumatoid arthritis and related musculoskeletal diseases. The program is widely recognized as one of the nation's leading clinical and research centers for rheumatic diseases.

While Mr. Steinbach remains in good health, he reminisces fondly about the more than four decades he and his wife shared traveling the country.

"My first Harley was a 1976 Super Glide Shovelhead, and one day we went down a country road to pick asparagus behind the town of Olathe, Colorado, where we lived for a time," Mr. Steinbach recalled. "When I asked her if she wanted to drive it, she was a bit reluctant to get on that 600-pound machine. But she gave it a shot. I had her hold in the clutch, and I put it in first gear to get it started down the road. She later said she could feel the torque, and that it was a great feeling. She understood why I enjoyed riding one so much."

Now her memory will live on through the endowment Mr. Steinbach's generosity has helped create.

"Janet is an angel riding in heaven now," he said. "I dealt on and off with her disease for 30 years. When she died, other people said, 'You had a burden lifted.' I would say, 'No way.' That's the kind of person, and the kind of impact, she had on me and on other people too."