The person I didn’t know how to reach was me.
For twenty-seven years I have sat at kitchen tables with families and shown them how to reach someone living with dementia. Slow down. Look past the words. Find the feeling underneath. Pause before you answer.
Somewhere in those years I noticed the same tools were working on my own life. On a marriage I was learning to trust. On a thirteen-year-old with big feelings. On a fifty-year friendship. On a girl who learned at ten that speaking could be dangerous. That girl was me.
The Way Back to Human Connection
How Being a Dementia Educator Healed Me
It releases in hardcover the first week of December. The Prologue and Introduction are ready now, about ten quiet minutes with a cup of something warm.
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The books
Connection IS Possible
A Kinder Way to Reach Someone Living with Dementia
Eight tools for the daughter, the husband, the friend who wants to reach someone whose brain is changing. An Amazon best seller in Memory Disorders.
Paperback and Kindle on Amazon
Come Sit with Me
A picture book for ages 3 to 7 · Illustrated by Melissa Anthony
For a child whose grandma, grandpa, or someone they love is living with dementia. Hardcover. All proceeds go to the Alzheimer’s Association, Greater New Jersey Chapter.
Hardcover on Amazon
The Way Back to Human Connection
How Being a Dementia Educator Healed Me
The memoir. A childhood kept secret for forty years, a career spent reaching people living with dementia, and the discovery that the two were the same story.
Hardcover, December 2026The blogs
Scenes from my own life, and the things I noticed that maybe others don’t. A new one most Fridays.
October 30, 2026
Still Holding On
My father is eighty. I watched him for one afternoon and it wore me out.
October 23, 2026
The Push-Up
Three years of jujutsu, twice a week. The kid still cannot do a single one.
October 16, 2026
The Gold Paint
My grandfather painted his furniture gold. I never understood it. It turns out I wasn’t supposed to.
The music
Before the books, there were songs, written the same way I write everything: from my own life, as plainly as I can. They’re coming back here soon, with the lyrics this time.
Coming soon
About Sheli
I became a caregiver at fourteen, for my grandmother Rose. I didn’t know how to reach her then. Everything I know about reaching people came later, over twenty-seven years of sitting with families, running support groups, and teaching professionals a kinder way to communicate.
I co-founded The Dementia Center and F.S. Grace & Co. with Fiona Van Dyck. I have the honor of working with families every week. I live in Hamilton with my husband Keith and our family. I write because the lessons dementia taught me turned out to be lessons about being human.