Love and loss know no distance
Leave a message for the person you're missing. Share good news, wish them a happy birthday, remember the good times, just like you used to.
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Erin here with a quick note about this project, as it’s very special to me. I first heard about this concept over 10 years ago in relation to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. This was long before I’d ever considered becoming an end-of-life doula, but it sunk into my psyche. It’s such a simple, healing, natural idea. It’s taken a lot of work, but I wanted to be able to offer it in my own way to as many as I can. I still have dreams of creating physical phones, but for now, please take comfort in this.
A beautiful idea
The origin of the Wind Phone
In 2010, Itaru Sasaki, a garden designer from Ōtsuchi, learned that his cousin had terminal cancer with three months to live. After his cousin's death, Sasaki set up an old telephone booth in his garden in December 2010, to continue to feel connected to him by "talking" to him on the phone. According to Sasaki, the wind phone was not designed with any specific religious connotation, but rather as a way to reflect on his loss. In an interview, he stated, "Because my thoughts couldn't be relayed over a regular phone line, I wanted them to be carried on the wind."
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake resulted in the deaths of at least 19,759 people most especially in tsunamis in the Tōhoku region, including over 1,200 people in Ōtsuchi (about 10 percent of the town's population). Sasaki subsequently opened the wind phone to the public to allow visitors to call their friends and family who had died in the disaster. It has since been visited by over 30,000 people.

Anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one will understand how painful it is to feel that urge to pick up the phone and speak to them. You see something on TV, you hear a funny story, you find a potato chip that somehow looks just like their brother. And for a brief moment you’ve forgotten that they’re gone. Just a split second your heart lifts, only to crash down. hard. when you remember they aren’t around anymore.
Maybe you have a milestone date coming up and you just keep thinking about them. It’s such a natural thing, isn’t it? Picking up the phone to call, to text, to let them know they’re on your mind. Perhaps another year has passed and you turned the age you both always cringed at becoming. There are millions of reasons, and you get it. Not to mention all the times you want to talk just because.
So.
Use these numbers and leave them a message. Catch them up on the latest news, share something funny, tell them how much they’re missed and thought about. You’ll be surprised at how it feels.
Check below to answers to a few common questions.
Please keep in mind the service we use to run this wind phone limits the length of voice messages to be 5 minutes long.
Additionally, if the call goes silent for 5 seconds, it automatically disconnects. We wish we could change this, but it's just a part of their security measures. If you're gathering your thoughts, try to remember to hum or fill the space with some sound.
Is this free?
Nothing more than what it normally costs you to make a phone call. Nearly everyone has a phone plan with monthly minutes you don't use!
What exactly is the process?
Choose the regionally appropriate number from above. The call will ring a few seconds before connecting to the main menu. You'll be given directions on how to leave your message, and you can take it from there!
Is there a limit to how many times I can call?
Nope! Call as often as you feel the need to.
Do I have to leave a message for someone specific? Or can I just talk for a bit?
If you've got something on your mind about life, death, dying, end-of-life, or anything like that, feel free to use the wind phone to get it out in the open.
Will you listen to my message?
That is completely up to you. When you call, you're given a choice of leaving the message in a monitored mailbox or an unmonitored one.
- Messages in the monitored one may be used to help The GMS spread awareness of the wind phone, and continue our mission of normalizing conversations around death and dying.
- Messages in the unmonitored will not be listened to, and will never be shared.