I Kept Meaning to Call My Mom

My mom lives in Maplewood, New Jersey and I'm in Long Island. Close on a map, but far enough that seeing her takes real effort. She's there alone, getting older, and she worries about me all the time.

I worry about her too, probably more than she knows. But she doesn't know, because I don't call enough for her to. And every day I don't, her worry has more room.

It's not silence. We talk, just less than either of us would want. She holds back because she doesn't want to feel like a burden. I forget, or life crowds it out, and another day passes.

I don't think I'm unusual here.

It was never that I didn't care

Think about your own life for a second.

The dinner you made when everyone was falling apart. The ride you gave when someone needed it and didn't ask. Someone noticed and meant to say something. Life was loud, the moment passed, and you're still, quietly, waiting.

Now flip it. The partner you would have thanked, if they weren't already asleep. The call you promised your mom on a Sunday, before the kids' game went to double overtime.

Both of those things live in most of us at one time or another. The ache of not being seen and the low, familiar guilt of falling short on the exact same thing for someone else.

None of that is a caring problem. It's a saying-it problem. Different things, even when they look and feel identical from the outside.

The two things that stop us

Two things get in the way.

First: they already know.

Maybe they do. Maybe not as much as we assume. Either way, hearing it out loud still feels good.

Second: we can't find the right words.

We worry about the words. Nobody on the other end is grading them. They're just moved someone bothered.

Put those together and you get paralysis. They already know, so what's the point. We'll say it badly, so why try. Convenient logic that doesn't really hold up.

Knowing that didn't make me call my mother more.

Understanding a gap doesn't close it

My phone reminds me about the dentist. The oil change. The birthday of someone I met at a conference three years ago and haven't spoken to since. It has never once reminded me to call my mom, except the one time she called, I didn't pick up, and told it to remind me later.

We've optimized these devices for almost everything. Traffic, calendars, expense reports, the exact minute to leave for the airport. The one thing that actually matters never made the roadmap.

A friend told me about something he'd started using with his partner, to reconnect after life had crowded them out. He said it worked, which for an app, is not nothing. The catch was remembering to open it. Good tool. Bad memory. Nobody was building for that part.

I'm an engineer. When something bothers me enough, I don't sit with it. I build my way out of it.

So I built something that would remember the people I kept meaning to reach, nudge me before I forgot, and give me somewhere to start when I couldn't find the words.

Using a tool to say it isn't a shortcut around caring. Opening the app, thinking about what makes someone special, picking the right tone, that's effort. That's care made visible. The feeling was always yours, and it would have been yours whether I ever built this or not. The tool just makes sure it gets said.

Where the name came from

I'd been working on an open source project with my son's name on it. My daughter, Bella, saw it and asked when she was getting one. I didn't have an answer.

What I built has her name in it instead. I went looking for a phrase that fit her, and found the French phrase bel ami. Bellami comes from that. Dear friend.

Remember to say it

If you've read this far, you've probably got someone in mind. A parent who's getting older. The partner who's carried more than you've thanked them for. A sibling you're proud of, and haven't told. The friend you drifted from without ever deciding to, and still miss.

I built Bellami so I'd stop meaning to say it and start remembering to. Download it, add the person you have in mind, describe what makes them special to you, and let it help you find the words.