“These Calls Aren’t for Me. They’re for You”: How a Daughter’s Grief Became a Lifeline for Independent Living

Deborah Labi is an Australian entrepreneur living between Sydney, Australia and Nice, France. She has spent many years travelling between Australia and Europe while running online businesses and speaking internationally about vacation rentals, technology and innovation. After the sudden loss of her mother in 2020, Deborah found herself asking a question she’d never considered before: if something happened to her while living independently, who would know? That question led her to create Your Coucou, a simple daily wellbeing check-in designed to help people remain independent while ensuring someone would know if something wasn’t right.
When she’s not working, Deborah enjoys photography, walking along the Mediterranean and sharing about the small thoughts and experiences that quietly shape our lives.

Learn more at www.yourcoucou.com.

Where it all started

by Deborah Labi

For more than ten years, every morning started the same way.

I’d make my coffee, open my laptop and call Mum. She was in Sydney, and I was wherever life happened to have taken me. Sometimes Sydney, sometimes Nice, sometimes Barcelona, London or somewhere else in Europe. It didn’t matter. Mum always had her computer on, waiting for my call.

For me, it was the start of a new day. For Mum it was usually the evening, the end of another day.

We talked about whatever had happened. The family. The news. What we’d each been doing. Because I moved around so much, Mum’s regular question was always, “Where are you?”

Sometimes we’d talk for ten minutes. Other days, an hour.

It wasn’t something we planned. It was simply what we did.

A few times during the last few years of her life, Mum would tease me and say, “These calls aren’t for me. They’re for you.”

“No they’re not!” I’d laugh back. “I’m checking on you.”

I remember thinking she had it completely wrong.

On 2 October 2020, I woke in my apartment in Barcelona to messages telling me someone had passed away.

I immediately rang my sister and learned it was Mum. She was still at the hospital with her. The next moment I was looking at Mum on a video call.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute or two after the call ended.

Numb.

In shock.

I didn’t know what to do.

I wondered whether I should make my coffee.

I flew to Nice the next day, as planned. Getting back to Australia was out of the question. It was simply impossible because of the COVID restrictions.

I couldn’t face the laptop. I couldn’t bring myself to sit there with my coffee.

Instead, I took my coffee down to the beach and sat looking out to sea.

One morning I had a realisation.

Who’s going to touch base with me?

Who knows where I am?

Who’ll know if something happens to me?

I’d chosen this life and I love my independence

But if something happened to me, who would know? And how long would it take?

The truth is, I don’t want to lie undiscovered for days. I know I’d already be gone, but I don’t like the thought of being found because the neighbours noticed a smell, or because friends wondered why I hadn’t responded to messages. It’s not something we like talking about, but it happens.

Then I remembered Mum teasing me.

“These calls aren’t for me. They’re for you.”

She’d been right.

Without ever talking about it, those calls had become our way of touching base every day. She knew I was okay. I knew she was okay. We weren’t checking up on each other. We were simply checking in.

That realisation stayed with me. Within days I had sketched out the idea that became Your Coucou, not to replace human contact, but to recreate the quiet reassurance Mum and I had shared for more than ten years.

I still believe in living independently. I wouldn’t want to live any other way.

But independence shouldn’t mean nobody would know if something went wrong.

Mum used to tell me those morning calls weren’t for her.

I laughed every time.

As it turned out, she was right.

That’s how a conversation between a mother and her daughter became Your Coucou.