For daughters

You live in London. She lives here.

You ring on Sundays. You come down when you can. And you still put the phone down with the feeling that the week ahead of her is emptier than she is letting on. This page is for you.

Black-and-white three-quarter portrait of Goreti Gananca, smiling.

The guilt

You are not failing her.

You have a job, and possibly children, and a train fare that has doubled. You are doing what you can, and the distance is not a moral failing — it is a geography.

But there is a particular ache in knowing that your mother is capable, well-liked, entirely fine on paper, and still has a Saturday with nothing in it. She won’t say so. She will tell you she’s been busy, and half of that will be true.

What she is missing usually isn’t help. It is someone to go with her — to the appointment she keeps rescheduling, the class she looked up in January, the exhibition she’d have loved and didn’t drive to because arriving alone felt like too much.

You cannot be there on a Tuesday afternoon. Someone can.

Goreti with her mother. — My mum. I’ve been the daughter in this, too.

The hard part

How to raise it without it landing as pity.

This is the bit most daughters get stuck on, so here is what tends to work.

Don’t open with her. Open with the thing. “There’s a woman in Chichester who goes with people to things — I thought of you and that pottery class you keep talking about.” The offer is about the class, not about her being alone.

Don’t present it as something you have arranged. The moment it becomes a decision made about her, she will refuse it, and she will be right to. Send the link, say what you thought, and leave it there for a week.

Don’t use the words you are tempted to use. Nobody wants to be told they seem lonely, and no woman in her sixties or seventies wants to be described as needing company. Say: someone to go with.

And be prepared for a no that later becomes a yes. Quite often the idea has to sit for a month before it stops sounding like a comment on her life.

If you'd like to start it

How arranging it works.

You write, not her

Tell Goreti what you're worried about and what your mother is like. Two paragraphs is plenty. Nothing happens off the back of that message except a reply.

A call with you

Twenty minutes on the phone, so you can hear who you'd be introducing her to. You'll know quickly whether this is right, and Goreti will say if it isn't.

Then she decides

Your mother speaks to Goreti herself and chooses whether to go ahead. Not you, and not the two of you deciding around her. This only works if she wants it.

You step back

Once it's arranged, the relationship is between the two of them. You'll know it's happening. You won't be given a report on what was said, because that isn't yours.

So we're clear

What this is not.

It is not personal or medical care, and it never becomes that quietly over time.
It is not therapy or counselling, and Goreti is not a counsellor.
It is not surveillance. You will not be sent updates on her mood or her health.
It is not a substitute for you. It is a Tuesday afternoon that exists whether or not you can get down this month.

One more thing worth saying plainly: Grounded Beside You works exclusively with women, and everything is set out in writing before it starts — what’s included, what it costs, and how either side ends it.

Write, and see what Goreti says.

Tell her about your mother, where she lives and what you’re worried about. You’ll get an honest answer, including if the honest answer is that this isn’t the right thing.

Enquire on her behalf See what it costs

Or email directly: hello@groundedbesideyou.co.uk