THE WIND PHONE

 

 On the first day of the new year in a nature preserve not far from our home

we ran across a Wind Phone when on our visit to a giant gnome.

The 17’ tall gnome (whose name is Gnomeo) was impressive

and a fun way to start the day…

but what caught our eyes and touched our hearts was the Wind Phone

one short walk away.

In 2010, after his cousin died, Itaru Sasaki, who lives in Otsuchi, Japan 

had this notion…

To build a phone booth with a disconnected phone on a grassy hill

overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

When his cousin died Itaru was crestfallen, despondent…dejected….

and he used this phone to express his grief and to his cousin stay connected.

Itaru would enter the booth, pick up the phone and talk to his cousin…

on those days he was feeling low.

He believed his words would be taken by the wind to exactly where they needed to go.

A year later, after a tsunami hit Otsuchi, Itaru found in his grief he wasn’t alone…

and with his permission people began lining up to talk to lost loved ones on his phone. 

When word got out people form all over came to Itaur’s phone…

which today still makes him stop and grin….

as they call loved ones they have lost and send their words out on the wind.

Now…you can find wind phones all over the world…

200 in the United States alone…

and Deborah and I were happy to have happened on this phone….

to sit for a moment in solitude…sifting through memories we’ve amassed…

and to send our voices on the wind to people we love who’ve passed.

Of the 200 wind phones in this country…

how lucky were we to find one so close to home….

while walking in a nature preserve…

just a few steps from a gnome.