Conversations with Kathy Welch

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathy Welch.

Hi Kathy, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story includes growing up in the 60s in Manhattan Beach, California with 3 brothers who are still alive and well. There is a lifetime of in-between with careers, marriages, and kids, but the last 10 years my story is really about finding once-in-a-lifetime love, experiencing devasting, life-altering loss, survival and a forever changed world view.

My path out of high school started with a banking career in 1976 and getting married. After 15 years, I left to find a better work life balance that was more in line with raising a family. My son, Mike, was this brilliant kid who needed better structure, and after researching different professions, I went into nursing. My daughter Morgan arrived 9 years after Mike and 4 years later, David, was born during the 3rd semester of my nursing program.

My nursing career gave me the flexibility to be involved in all my kid’s sports and school activities. My specialty was intensive care. I spent the first year in a trauma center and the last 28 years at Providence Little Company of Mary in Torrance, CA. Fast forward to 2014 and my estranged marriage of 38 years officially came to an end. David was 19 and had just moved to New York. While my divorce was going through the motions, David returned home and enrolled as a physics major at Santa Monica College.

I was literally the happiest that I recall ever being in years. My kids and my Golden Retriever Sam #4 were good, I had a great nursing career, and family were all good. I was at peace. And then, not really looking, enter Tom and things even got better. Tom arrived like this steady light and helped me know what it means to feel trust and be loved. Tom was my rock when the world took a drastic turn, and he remained my one constant. I never thought I would remarry but Tom brought to the table love and stability and with him I felt complete.

David still lived with me and then us, after Tom and I married in 2016. David had never moved out except for his short time in New York. Physics, math, space, composing music were his thing and he was good at it. He was also very humble and a minimalist. He had slept on the floor at home for a year until his thin bony frame relented and he let me buy him a mattress. He bought his clothes at the Good Will. He was vegan and bought supplements to help with muscle mass and brain acuity. David and his siblings were so different yet very close. Morgan was the fierce protector and loved her brother deeply. Mike was like the father figure who was 9 and 13 years older than his siblings. Mike was an ER nurse; Morgan was a copy writer and had started a surfing streak to surf every day in 2015. Ten years later, on 7/21/2025, Morgan completed her streak.

David was a physics major, determined to attend Harvard or Yale as a research scientist. He was focused on the biophysical and chemical workings of the brain in order to help find effective treatments for depression. David kept me in the loop as he struggled with his own depression. He told me he had a brain abnormality and started actively seeking help in 2016. I helped him obtain resources and connect with a neurologist and psychiatrist. David also adhered to a strict diet, researched antidepressant medications, continued to write music as a form of therapy and was always hopeful that he would find an effective treatment for what was becoming a severe clinical depression.

In 2017, we had a lovely Thanksgiving where David was engaged and seemed happy so we decided it would be safe to go out of town after Christmas. I talked with David the day he died and the last words we said to each other was “I love you.” David lost his battle on 12/31/2017.

As an ICU nurse, I had cared for many patients who had survived their suicide attempt. Working with those patients was heartbreaking, I never assumed to truly understand the pain these families felt. Now I did and it was total devastation. After some time of shifting through the aftermath of losing David, it became important to not let his death just be the end of him but rather to create a legacy in which the meaning of his life would live on. So out of this tragedy, my family and I turned our grief into giving and formed the David Sliff Memorial Foundation.

thedavidsliffmemorialfoundation.com

The purpose of David’s foundation is to provide academic scholarships to financially struggling students and support mental health organizations. David was passionate about many things and education was one of them. He tried so very hard to achieve his academic goals while he attended Santa Monica College, so providing scholarships to students became a tangible way to honor David and help others achieve their goals, which is what David really wanted to do.

David’s foundation also supports mental health organizations, namely the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, The Trevor Project, and The Jimmy Miller Foundation.

During my nursing career, I experienced amazing courage and professionalism from my colleagues, especially as we worked together through Covid. There were countless untold everyday selfless acts of kindness paired with so many tragedies. After 30 years, I recently retired and am still processing through the trauma that comes with our profession. As I think about the heroes I was privileged to work with, my biggest one has become David, who was kind, humble, and had wisdom beyond his years. David’s death has reshaped me more than any experience I ever had in the ICU.

The once proud, certain, self-assured and sometimes rigid person who I used to be, has been forever changed in a way only the greatest loss imaginable can do. But I’m okay with the changes. Grief cracked me open in ways I never expected and has rearranged the architecture of my mind. Walls have been replaced by windows. I think and feel differently and receive the world with a tenderness I didn’t have before.

While this grief of missing David, along with all the wonders of what he would be doing today, will never go away. It transforms over the years. David’s foundation helps others and that’s what we strive to do. That’s what David would have wanted.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The struggles were dealing with and processing the grief of losing David while trying to function and survive. I still had to work, take care of my mom, who was 86 at the time of David’s death and balance life. ICU is a tough field of nursing. You spend 12 hours doing things with your colleagues that you can’t discuss with others, and no one wants to hear about, nor will they understand unless they work in the same field. My first day back to work after bereavement leave was admitting a young man who had survived his suicide attempt.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I was a banker for 15 years and went into nursing for 30 years from 1995 to 2025. I have always worked in Intensive Care dealing with the most sick and complicated patients. I went into nursing management for about 5 years and then went back to being a permanent charge nurse in the unit. That was my best role as I was running the unit during my shift and staying close to the nurses, patients and family members. Going to meetings all day was not my thing. I needed to be in the unit where things were happening. I think I’m most remembered for being fair, always having the nurse’s backs and having a backup plan for when things went bad.

At our 2007 annual nurse excellence awards celebration, I received the highest award recognition for Intensive Care Nursing and also the overall aware for the 5 nursing departments in the category of critical care. In 2012, I was nominated again for the same honor but was not eligible because I had already won it. I was also nominated in 2015 for ICU Assistant nurse manager of the year.

I feel what sets me apart is having a servant leadership model of managing, and a great deal of compassion and understanding for the needs of the staff who worked for me and for my colleagues. After I was no longer a manager, I was still a charge nurse who made the assignments, did the staffing, became involved in patient/family issues and acted fairly and with a level head. I was also always open to suggestions for doing something a better way.

I have also been a lifelong runner for over 50 years and have completed many half and full marathons. When my daughter was born in 1990, all I wanted was a baby jogger. Both Morgan and David spent a lot of time in the jogger before they graduated to biking alongside me. I believe my running inspired many of my work colleagues to give it a try and become healthier. After David died, I joined the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention marathon team and ran several LA Marathons while raising funds for suicide prevention and to honor David. I was also the team captain for the Providence sponsored AFSP annual fundraising walks from 2018 to 2024 in addition to having my own AFSP team, In Memory of David.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I don’t really believe in luck as most people think of it. I believe that God helps guide our decisions when we reach out in prayer. I believe what some may think of as bad luck, like not getting what you had hoped for, is something that was not meant to be. This can be difficult for many people to accept and understand. I don’t try to have a rational explanation for everything that seemingly goes wrong in life. I accept it as it was just not meant to be.

Many events are just beyond our understanding, like when David died. I was never mad or angry at God or David. I’ve accepted that there are some things I will never understand, and this is one of them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thedavidsliffmemorialfoundation.com
• Facebook: The David Sliff Memorial Foundation
• LinkedIn: Kathy Welch