Emily Chan
At some point in our lives, we all experience grief. No two people grieve in the exact same way, and navigating the path of grief can be a complex journey. There is one creative approach that can help grieving people deal with loss—wind phones.
Wind phones are rotary or push-button phones located next to a chair or bench in nature. It is not connected to any wires.
The wind phone can be used to “call” and have a conversation with a loved one who has passed. People can discuss the things they never got to say, express their grief, and connect with the individual who is gone.
It can be a healthy way to cope with no longer having the physical and tangible support of that person.
Throughout the United States, there are about 200 wind phones. They are free to use and open to the public. They are usually found on church grounds, in parks, and along walking trails.
The tool has only recently become more widely known, but the idea of talking to the dead has been around for generations. The wind phone was invented in Japan in 2010 by a garden designer named Itaru Sasaki.
He set up a phone booth in his yard so he could “talk” to his cousin, who had died of cancer. He named the phone booth “the Telephone of the Wind.”
In 2011, the Fukushima earthquake of 9.1 magnitude resulted in a tsunami with waves that reached 30 feet high and obliterated the coast of Japan.
More than 20,000 people died in just a matter of minutes. Many were swept out to sea, and their bodies were never recovered. The city of Ōtsuchi has the highest number of missing persons.
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