Editor’s note: This interview was conducted by email.
G. Wayne Miller:
Congratulations on the publication of your latest book, “Az and Me.” It’s a non-fiction account of a deeply emotional and personal experience. Can you describe the circumstances that led to it?
Colleen Kelly Mellor:
Sure… because Paul has had it for so long a time (14+ years) and I was his sole caregiver for 13+ of those years, and because my family is gutted with Alzheimer’s (father died of it years ago and two brothers died of it this past year), I felt it incumbent upon me to write what I knew… all the things I had to learn the hard way. One of the most prescient was veteran benefits because it was my generation who went to Vietnam… and so many (like me) do not know for what our vets qualify. I am changing that… I am arming my generation (to use a military metaphor) with the info they need to make the journey less difficult.
GWM:
On your website, you describe your more than ten years as the sole caregiver for your husband, Paul Wesley Gates. What did he do before the disease was diagnosed?
CKM:
Paul, like me, has had several careers. First, he was a long-haul, truck driver who owned his own big rigs (he drove one all over the country for 30 years and leased the other out, to other drivers; he was named by Atlas Van Lines as “one of the 50 Best Truckers in the Nation” for driving all that time ‘without accident or incident.’ When he stepped off the big rig for the last time, he went to a job fair and discovered that the Department of Corrections was hiring and he applied. Some laughed, believing him (now in his early 50’s) was too old for that job. But Paul had always been a jogger… did 5 Ks… and he was fit. In the physical, he “blew the younger guys’ doors off” (his Arkansan expression for making believers out of them). His times on all the tests were better than theirs. He worked at the Adult Correctional Institutions as a correctional officer for the next 19 years. All along he was in the Army National Guard for 20 years where he was 1st sergeant of his unit, the 861st. in East Greenwich. That added to his two years in the Navy Seabees, when he was 20 (he signed up during the Vietnam War), has given him Career Military status. So… long distance owner/operator of big rigs… ACI correctional officer (don’t ever call them “guards”–ha-ha)…Military Man. And actually, I was the sole caregiver for 13+ years; he’s been diagnosed for 14+ years. It’s easier for me to say over 10 years than be specific and it’s also difficult to ascertain WHEN Alzheimer’s came on. As a caregiver, you see signs way before the actual diagnosis.
GWM:
And what were those ten-plus years as a sole caregiver like? You write that you found a way for him and you to “survive – even thrive.” Can you please expand on that?
CKM:
Most of those years were fine, probably because I’ve had to operate pretty independently with my life situations (divorced, followed by two deaths of spouses by the time I was 42 years of age). I raised two daughters ten years apart in age, all on my own. We were both retired (I from teaching and real estate and he from his jobs), so we went back and forth to our retirement destination, Asheville, for nine years where we had a condominium in the mountains. I drove all the time; I did all the financial necessities. He and I could still visit towns, bike often (which we loved to do), go for walks, and socialize with friends. Paul and I have been together for 34 years. The progression of his illness has been a very slow one, but he could never have lived on his own. In 2010, in Asheville, he was hit on a mountain road by a (youngster) driving an uncle’s truck. Paul suffered a broken neck, and died as a result of swelling, following surgery. The triage team brought him back to life but he’d suffered an anoxic episode (no oxygen to the brain). It took us two years of PT, OT etc. to recover somewhat but the accident exacerbated his cognition decline… and he was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2010.
GWM:
“Az and Me” also has humor. How did you find that, given your situation?
CKM:
I absolutely love people; I love their life stories; I love how they conquer tough situations. In my own life, I’ve been devastated often and tried to find the kernel of humor–somewhere. If it were the cancer ward of Roger Williams Hospital when my second husband had to go in for rounds of 24/7 chemo, rooming with a little Italian guy whose wife brought in her heating unit and proceeded to warm up the “meat-a-balls” for Joe because, in her mind, meat-a-balls can cure anything. The rest of the wing was probably nauseous on fumes because chemo doesn’t make for a good appetite. Things like that make me smile…Humanity makes me smile. I will find the humor–if it’s there. And I will share that upbeat attitude with others because the journey is too desolate if we solely focus on the other (I wrote that story up and it appeared somewhere.)
Read the entire interview here.
Copyright © 2025 Salve Regina University. Originally published by OceanStateStories.org.
