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A conversation with Dr. Melodie Yates, her 16-year journey as a caregiver for her husband with Alzheimer’s, and author of Love is an Action Verb
Right now, more than 57 million people worldwide are living with dementia. Nearly 10 million new cases every single year. And behind every single one of those diagnoses, there is a caregiver — often unpaid, often unseen, often alone.
Today’s guest has lived that truth for 17 years. Dr. Melodie Yates cared for her husband of 50 years as he walked the long path of Alzheimer’s disease. She is a university administrator turned author, and she wrote poetry along the way — not because she was a poet, but because she needed somewhere to put it all. This conversation is for every caregiver who needs to hear that someone understands.
When You Know Something Is Wrong
Melodie noticed the signs before she had words for them — small things, calendar mix-ups, conversations that didn’t quite track. Her husband Dick, a PhD in counseling psychology, actually took himself to a neurologist before she knew anything was wrong. He invited her to the appointment. That moment in the doctor’s office was the beginning of a 17-year journey neither of them could fully see coming.
The Moment Everything Changed
There was a conversation in the kitchen. Melodie couldn’t tell you what it was about. What she remembers is that somewhere in the middle of it, she realized she was losing her partner. Not the way a diagnosis tells you — but the way the body knows, before the mind catches up. She felt hollowed out. And the person she would normally have turned to was the one who was disappearing.
The Question Every Caregiver Faces: Who Do You Tell?
Melodie held the diagnosis close for a long time — protective of Dick’s dignity, uncertain how to explain something the world pictures one way when the reality is far more complicated. This tension is something I’ve written about and heard from caregivers for forty years. The impulse to protect is loving and real. But the cost of staying silent is isolation. And isolation is one of the heaviest things a caregiver carries.
What Ambiguous Loss Actually Feels Like
Alzheimer’s is not a disease of one moment of loss. It is a recalibration, over and over and over again. A paragraph’s worth of comprehension becomes a sentence, then a word, then a nanosecond. You grieve the person while they are still there. There are no sympathy cards for that. No casseroles. No thoughts and prayers. Just you, watching someone you love disappear slowly, while the world around you keeps moving as if nothing is happening.
The Caregiver Who Needs a Caregiver
After COVID, when her children came to visit, Melodie saw herself in their eyes. And it was not a good look. She had disappeared too — drop by drop, across years — while keeping someone else afloat. This is what happens when we try to do it alone. The research is detailed, and the consequences are real: caregivers carry the highest rates of stress, anxiety, depression, and physical illness of any population. We are not meant to do this alone.
What the Poetry Did
Melodie started writing not because she was a poet but because something was building in her that needed somewhere to go. She describes it as a download — letting the emotion out so love could flow back through. It didn’t make her perfect. She lost her temper. She had hard days. But the writing gave her more of the good moments and fewer of the other kind.
About Melodie’s Book
Love is an Action Verb: A Caregiver’s Journey — available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The book contains Melodie’s poetry alongside reflection questions you can use for journaling or in a caregiver support group. As Melodie says, the purpose is not to give you something else to do. It’s to help you find yourself in the pages and know you are not alone.
Quotes From This Episode
“You take your soul’s light into that tunnel and hold his soul’s light up so it will be there when he needs it at the end of this particular journey.” — Melodie Yates (0:00)
“Caregiving is not tidy. It’s messy. It’s exhausting. It’s loving and often lonely.” — Dr. Lori
“It wasn’t like this is a snapshot. Every day or every other day there is some different reality.” — Melodie Yates
“I wasn’t able until that moment to see just how badly I had disappeared in this process.” — Melodie Yates
“There’s no pot roast. There’s no sympathy cards. There’s no thoughts and prayers. It’s you, alone, grieving a process.” — Dr. Lori
“It was also a privilege to accompany him on that journey. It’s not one I would recommend people seek out. But I don’t regret a single year.” — Melodie Yates
Resources Mentioned
Books
Love is an Action Verb: A Caregiver’s Journey by Melodie Yates
So Your Loved One Has Dementia: Now What? by Lori Stevic-Rust
Caregiver Journal: A Keepsake of Reflections for the Journey You Never Trained for by Lori Stevic-Rust
Support Community
Caregiver Circle™ —online community for dementia caregivers. Live monthly support group, expert guidance, resources, and people who understand what you’re carrying: drloristevic.com/caregiver-circle
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