McCann Communications

Kathy Sheller McCann

Kathy was John's wife for 33 years. She was his business partner for 15 years. She was his caregiver for 2 years.  Kathy received her BA degree in psychology, and was always fascinated with the brain, how it worked and why. Another interest was chronicling life, events, whatever was important at the moment. But never in her wildest imagination did she ever think that she would come face to face with her interests in such a personal way. When she was thrust into her journey with Alzheimer's Disease she soon realized that she needed to write things down—how John was acting, how she was reacting. She wrote almost every night. Over six hundred full-sized single-spaced pages pared down to 121! She focused on John. Those were the words that counted.

The dragon artwork used for the cover was done by Kathy's son. One Christmas vacation during college, he came home consumed with the need to do this painting. The living room floor was covered in a massive 8' x 12' drawing. After being convinced that the size needed to be reduced, the end product measured 3' x 4' and hangs proudly on Kathy's dining room wall.

John always had a fascination for dragons and dinosaurs, and today one wonders if that was a precursor clue to where all their lives would eventually lead. Whatever the connection, John's dragon represents a love-hate relationship with that other dragon.