Dementia Can’t Stop This 86-Year-Old’s Final Sail on Potomac

Carol “Sally” Keller, an 86-year-old memory care resident of The Wellington at Lake Manassas, was granted a years-long wish to go sailing with her family again.

David Keller, Sally’s son, said he grew up going sailing with his mother because it was a long-standing family tradition; Sally’s uncle had a 46-foot sailboat and her husband had a 17-foot sailboat that they often sailed on the Potomac River, the Chesapeake Bay and the Patuxent River.

Sally moved into The Wellington around five years and during the COVID-19 pandemic, she “visited” her family via video call, frequently when they were sailing.

“Mom would see the boat in the background and always said, ‘I want to go on your boat,'” David recalled. “[It was] probably not the world’s safest idea.”

David said he and his sister had reservations about taking her out on another boat as she grew older and her dementia progressed. But, that’s when Marie Garner, the Inspiritás — or memory care program — coordinator at The Wellington, approached the family with the facility’s “WOW Moment” initiative.

The initiative aims to provide “residents with a personalized experience that reminisces on times past, checks something off a bucket list or honors them in some way,” a press release states. These occur once a quarter for the memory care residents.

Even with this proposition, David and his sister were hesitant.

“We had to wait to find a big enough boat that was safe enough, had walls and … [we] thought we could get her on and off of,” David said. “My mother [can still walk], sort of, but she’s stubborn enough to not want to ride in a wheelchair or use a walker. There were some challenges, but I think she actually had a good time.”

Sally is minimally verbal, but according to David, she spoke some words during their trip across the Potomac. She was able to see some ducks following the boat and verbalized “ducks” in recognition of the group.

David said it was evident through her facial expressions that she recognized she was on a boat and wasn’t afraid.

“She wasn’t afraid of anything, which was another concern of mine,” he said. “I didn’t know how she was going to react [to the movement], but she was totally fine with all of that.”

The family even took her to the outside section of the boat on the way back so she could feel the breeze on the water.

“Other than being afraid of losing her hat, she seemed to enjoy that,” David said.

David said despite his initial reservations, he would encourage others to not be afraid to try an experience like this for their loved ones.

“If the activities director calls you up with a crazy idea, just go for it.”