An example, not your letter
Linda is 63. Her daughter stopped speaking to her two years ago. Nothing on this page comes from your answers, and nothing you have written has been touched.
Everything Linda told us, and the letter that came back
It took her about five minutes. Almost all of it was tapping. She typed one thing, the time she wishes she could take back, and she did not have to. Every fact in her letter comes from what she told us. Nothing about her family was made up.
What she tapped
One question to a screen, with big buttons. Each button stands for a plain sentence in her voice. These are hers.
- I am writing to my daughter.
- It has been between one and three years since we last spoke.
- My daughter was the one who stopped the contact.
- The break was mostly about how my daughter lives her life.
- I have tried to reach my daughter many times since.
- When I reached out, there was no reply.
- There is nothing legal in place about contact between us.
- My daughter has never said that something I did hurt her badly, or that being with me was not safe.
- There are grandchildren.
- There is no money between us.
- I have blamed someone close to my daughter for this.
- What I want most from this letter is to explain my side.
- I miss her laugh.
- I miss being part of her everyday life.
- She told me I never listened to her.
- She told me I criticized her too much.
- Looking back, I would listen more and argue less.
- Looking back, I would keep my opinions to myself.
- What is different now is that I listen more than I talk.
- What is different now is that I have had time to see my part in this.
- I love you, and I'm sorry.
- My daughter calls me Mom.
- If I send this and hear nothing back, I can let it be, with no follow-up.
She was also asked whether her daughter had told her, in the last three months, not to make contact. She tapped no. A recent request, anything legal, or not being able to let a silence be would each have stopped the letter before she was asked to pay.
What she was shown, free
Before she typed a word, her first answers were turned into three things parents in her situation most often get wrong in a letter. For Linda they were:
Letting someone else into the letter.
Going back over the argument.
Explaining your side.
The one thing she typed
Typed on her phone, exactly as they appear here. Two sentences or so was enough for each.
“Thanksgiving two years ago, in her kitchen, she asked me to drop it and I said one more thing anyway.”
On the last screen she was asked what her daughter calls her, and wrote “Mom”. The letter is signed with it. She also chose to give the name her letter opens with. We never ask for it: leave it blank and the letter opens “Dear ____,” for you to write in by hand.
The letter
Every sentence comes from something above. It answers what her daughter said, owns one specific thing, asks for nothing, and ends on Linda’s own sentence.
What was left out, and why
These are Linda’s own words, typed or tapped, quoted back exactly. Every one of them was true. Each one would have cost her the letter.
“What I want most from this letter is to explain my side.”
An explanation asks her to weigh your case, so the letter owns one thing you did and explains nothing.
“The break was mostly about how my daughter lives her life.”
Raising how she lives, even to say it no longer matters to you, would make the letter one more round of the argument.
“I have blamed someone close to my daughter for this.”
You told us this so that person could stay out of the letter, and nobody close to her appears in it.
“There are grandchildren.”
She would read any mention of them as the real reason you wrote, so the letter does not mention them at all.
“I have tried to reach my daughter many times since.”
A count of your tries reads to her as keeping score, so the letter leaves them out and says only what happens from here.
How Emily might respond
This part is optional, and it is not Emily. It is the program’s careful guess at her, written from Linda’s answers and her letter, so that the first hard reply Linda read was not the real one.
What landed
Her own words, and then "You're right" with nothing after it. The Thanksgiving lines land for the same reason: they say what happened in her kitchen and they do not explain it.
What Emily would push back on
She'd push back on "I still have the thought": she'd hear the same judgment still sitting there, only quieter, and wonder how long you can keep it to yourself.
One line to reconsider
"After this letter there will be nothing more." It is the one promise in the letter she can check. It only lands if it stays true, so be sure you mean it before you send it.
After that comes a plan for sending it: by hand and by mail if she has an address, what to leave out of the envelope, and the ninety days after, in which she sends nothing more.
Begin your own
The questions are free, and they take about five minutes. They will tell you if now is not the time. The letter is $29, one payment, and you are only asked to pay once you know a letter can be written.