At our Grief Cafes, people often share how they speak to their loved one—quietly, through their mobile and headphones, while out walking—as if the person were still alive. These conversations always remind me of the Wind Phone in Japan: a simple, disconnected telephone placed in a garden overlooking the sea, where words spoken into the receiver are carried, symbolically, on the wind.
When an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in 2011, 30ft (9.14m) waves obliterated coastal communities. The small town of Otsuchi lost everything including 2000 residents.
One resident, Itaru Sasaki, was already grieving his cousin before the tsunami hit. He had the idea of nestling an old phone booth on the windy hill at the bottom of his garden which overlooked the Pacific Ocean. This would be a place he could go to speak to his cousin – a place where his words could ‘be carried on the wind.’ The white, glass-paned booth holds an old disconnected rotary phone. He called it his Wind Phone.
In the aftermath of the terrible tsunami, as word of the phone spread, it became a pilgrimage site for those who had lost loved ones. In the sanctuary of the booth they would dial old phone numbers and talk to their loved ones.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p07cj0h3/japan-s-telephone-to-the-dead