ProJo Columnist and Long-Time Caregiver Gives Inspiring Talks: “Many Have Called Theirs ‘A Love Story:’ Paul Wesley Gates and Colleen Kelly Mellor Colleen Kelly Mellor was sole Caregiver to her husband, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s for 13+ years, but when she knew she could no longer do his 24/7 care, she sought out a residential place…
“Many Have Called Theirs ‘A Love Story:’ 10 Reasons You’ll Want to Hear Colleen Kelly Mellor’s Talk? 10.Readers love her book as seen on Amazon Customer reviews. ***In 2025, Colleen plans to share important tips she learned over her 10+ years as sole Caregiver to her husband, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s: she weaves together anecdotes of…
I needed my hair done for a major book presentation and sought my long time hair stylist who’s seen me through many events (weddings, etc.) Problem? Donna Simonelli (her photo’s on the right) would be on vacation in Costa Rica. So, she offered her friend/stylist Christine Corio DiBenedetto, whom I also knew, to stand in…
One fairly long (over a year) Caregiver stint for a loved one and the family assets could all go….
It’s a rapacious predator who has taken far too many of my family. Just in the past 9 months, my two brothers passed, due to this illness. John Jr., at the age of 79, passed last August and Peter, 82, died more recently. John was buried on the Cape one month ago and Pete is…
When one is younger, she (I give the preference to “she” because I can’t speak for men) doesn’t really consider memory, because she doesn’t have many memories in her cognitive vault. She’ll build them over a lifetime, with some being wonderful and some (hopefully not too many) painful. My friend, Jackie Damian, once spoke about…
It was as still as could be in Berry Cemetery (yes, someone knew that name would get a reaction), off a dirt road in Denmark, Maine, where I’d gone this past Saturday, in June, to be part of the funeral assembly for my latest cousin who’d gone the route of Alzheimer’s. The sound of the…
Mark Patinkin, a top journalist at Rhode Island’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Providence Journal, interviewed me and wrote up Paul’s and my story about our wedding this past December 16, 2023. He found our story intriguing—the kind in which others would be interested. We were 83 and 78 years of age and we’d been together in an…
