They know you love them. Now they'll feel ittwice a month.
A personalised printed newsletter, posted every two weeks to your relative in their care home, from you, by name. Written with warmth. Arrived with the post. Kept in a box.
every two weeks
printed and posted
at this price
"I thought of you when I saw the first one. I thought of you knowing exactly what they meant."
From Pete's Post — a Staying Close newsletterThe newsletter cannot replace a visit. It can do something a visit cannot: it can be held, re-read, left on a table, picked up again, shared with another resident, and kept in a box. It is a physical object that says, in its very existence: you are still known. You are still thought of. There is a world beyond this building that includes you.
Not a circular. Not a care home publication. A letter.
Staying Close looks like a small personal publication, beautifully designed, warm in tone, printed on good paper, but it reads like a letter from someone who knows your relative well and is glad to be writing to them.
Each issue is produced specifically for your relationship. It carries the sender's name and the recipient's name. The characters in the stories are introduced through your voice. The games are chosen for the kind of person your relative is. The note at the end is yours.
It is published every two weeks and posted to arrive on a Tuesday, a specific, predictable rhythm that gives your relative something to look forward to, and something to mention to a care worker or another resident.
It is, in the plainest sense, a gift of attention. Twice a month, without fail.
Each issue contains a warm original story, a piece of interesting history or a seasonal reference, a game to play alone or with a visitor, and a personal note from you. Every issue is different. None of them feel like a template.
Something to read. Something to do. Something from you.
No two issues are the same. Some are short and warm, a story, a note, something to smile at. Some are longer, a story, a piece of interesting history, a game, a memory prompt, and a note. The content is chosen for the season, the relationship, and the person.
The things that go wrong with care sector communication.
There is a particular kind of language that care services use, and it does not serve the people it is meant to reach. Staying Close was built in conscious opposition to it.
- Generic warmth. "Your loved one is in our thoughts." We use specific names, specific details, specific people. Generic warmth is not warmth at all.
- "Loved one." This phrase does not appear anywhere in Staying Close. Ever. Your mum is your mum. Your dad is your dad. Your husband is your husband.
- "Journey." The dementia journey. The care journey. No. This is a person's life. We write about it as such.
- Simplified language that condescends. The recipient has dementia. They do not have diminished intelligence. We write for adults, at 13-point type, with sentences that respect the person reading them.
- The assumption of memory. Every issue is self-contained. Every character is introduced warmly, through your voice, as if for the first time. We never assume a previous issue was read or remembered.
- Content that implies loss. The newsletter is about what continues, not what has changed. It brings the outside world in. It does not dwell on what the inside world looks like.
- Formulaic sameness. Every issue is different. Some are short. Some are longer. The games vary. The reference items vary. The layout varies. A newsletter that always looks identical stops being noticed.
You tell us who it's for. We do the rest.
You supply the relationship details. We write, design, print, and post every issue, on a schedule you can rely on.
Twenty-six letters a year. Each one worth keeping.
Every issue of Staying Close is designed to be kept. We recommend giving your relative a named memory box, a simple keepsake box labeled with their name and the newsletter's title, where each issue can be stored once it has been read.
Over months and years, the box fills up. When you visit, you can open it together. A care worker can take it out on a quiet afternoon. Another resident can ask about it. A grandchild visiting for the first time can pick up an issue and understand, in five minutes, something profound about the person in front of them.
The newsletter is for now. The memory box is for always.
The guilt of the distance. The difficulty of the visit. The need to do something, twice a month, that is simply and unmistakably an act of love.
Nobody tells you how hard it is to visit someone who may or may not recognise you on any given day. Nobody tells you what to talk about, or how to fill an hour when conversation is difficult, or how to leave without feeling like you have abandoned them.
Staying Close gives you something to do on the visit. The memory box is there. The games are designed to be played together. The story can be read aloud. The memory prompt in last fortnight's issue is waiting to be asked. You arrive with material, not just good intentions.
And in the two weeks between visits, the newsletter is doing the work you cannot do in person. It says, twice a month, in print, with their name on the envelope: I am thinking of you. I wanted you to know. I am coming soon.
That is not a small thing to say. It is, for most people in this situation, exactly what they most want to say, and rarely feel they have said clearly enough.
Staying Close was built for families who are doing their best in an impossible situation, and who know that their best is not always enough, and who are looking for something, anything, that closes the gap a little.
A letter that arrives. With their name on it. From you.
That is what this is.
DementiaCareChoices.comTwenty-four issues.
every two weeks
written, printed, posted
at this price
This price is available to the first 100 subscribers. We are being straightforward with you: if postal costs rise significantly or other costs change, we will give you advance notice before any price increase takes effect. We are not in the business of surprises. Our intention is to hold this price for as long as we possibly can.
One subscription. One person receiving it. Two letters a month, every month, for a year.