David Benner, a longtime IndyStar staffer who also worked for the Pacers in media relations, was 67.
Toward the end, when the cancer stopped nibbling and started taking large bites, Benner knew the decision was no longer his. A proud Southsider, he spent a week in intensive care at St. Francis Hospital before moving into the nearby Franciscan Hospice House. That was three weeks ago.
David Benner had a heart, but he kept that part of himself under wraps as best he could, unless you were on the inner circle. Very few people got inside there. Lucky me, he let me inside about six months ago before putting up the wall again. He was dying, see, but that was his story. And he wasn’t going to open his book for just anyone.A curmudgeon's curmudgeon, David Benner
He was in the middle of another cancer fight, and I’d seen something pretty remarkable – well, actually, I’d not seen it – a few weeks earlier when I’d been at a Pacers game and Benner was there, same ol’ Benner: curmudgeonly. And then he was gone, leaving the arena before the game started. Nobody said why. I didn’t know. Turns out, he’d undergone chemo earlier that day. Didn’t tell anyone. Well, he didn’t tell me. I was on the outside.
At some point he sent me a text message, wanting to get together. I still have it. It’s dated Nov. 10, 2022: Wells had another inkling when he left his friend for the final time, and Benner gave him a fist bump and told him, for the first time, “I love you.”Benner hated that I’d do that, by the way. He didn’t like the way I’d put words like “I” and “me” in my stories. He was an old-school journalist, and in the 1970s and 80s, you didn’t write in the first person. Things have changed over the years, as social media has broken down what wall existed between journalists and readers.
For weeks after that coffee he’d send me the occasional note, saying hello or asking about my recently adopted dog. On Jan. 4 I sent him something blunt, because Benner liked it blunt:He said no. Suggested we try in a couple weeks. Said his hip was bothering him, that he was using a cane, that the pain killer wasn’t doing much.
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