Diane "D." (McKinna) Welch

 Diane “D.” McKinna Welch, 64, passed away Sept. 13, 2016, lovingly surrounded by her family at her home in Cañon City. She outlived by three years an initial six-month diagnosis from a rare, terminal lung cancer.
    D. was born Aug. 22, 1952, in Denver and was raised in Nebraska and Denver. She graduated from South High School in Denver in 1970 and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Adams State University. After raising her children at home for 16 years and teaching English part time, she returned to school and took double courses to earn her master’s degree.
    She thoroughly enjoyed operating her private practice in Cañon City for more than 20 years, where she treated several hundred patients, as well as some in Salida and Pueblo.
    Some of the emphases she focused on in her practice were treating patients with mental and cognitive difficulties and analytic, or Jungian, psychology. She also enjoyed working with patients who had eating disorders and treatment-refractory depression.
    D. always knew she wanted to work in psychiatry. At the age of 6, she herded her friends into a room and told them to recline on a couch as she took scrupulous notes in a journal. She first was inspired by Dr. Sigmund Freud, but later embraced Carl Jung’s theories and employed the Jungian approach with her patients. She believed Jung held the secret of life that she had spent years looking for.
    D. truly loved her patients, some of whom she treated for several years and deeply valued the relationship she had with them. She spent one to two hours every day walking alone, using that quiet time to think about her patients’ problems and how she could better help guide them. She retired from her practice in 2011.
    Despite a successful, fulfilling career, D.’s greatest accomplishment was her children, Bonny and Scott.
    D. married Art Welch on Dec. 31, 2009. She recently said it was “a wonderful thing to marry such a perfect man.” The couple enjoyed traveling and serving the community through several civic groups and organizations. D. also enjoyed gardening, cooking, antiquing, recycling and had a love for Western TV shows. She once said she most certainly lived life while she was alive.
    A quote by Pablo Picasso that D. held dear to her heart the last several weeks of her life was, “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
    D. is survived by her husband, Art Welch; daughter, Bonny (Jörg Friebel) McKinna of Cologne, Germany; son, Scott (Jessica Unruh) McKinna, of Cañon City; and older brother, Bill Young, of Denver.
    A Celebration of Life will be planned at a later date.  Arrangements entrusted to Harwood Funeral Home.  Online condolences at harwoodfunerals.com.

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