Like many mothers and daughters, Amy and Emily Dawson once filled their phone calls with everything from life’s biggest moments to the everyday details. But now, Amy speaks to Emily through a phone that isn’t connected to any line. After Emily passed away from a terminal illness in 2020 at the age of 25, Amy found solace in creating a “wind phone”—a quiet place where words float into the air, carried by the breeze to someone who can no longer answer.

The idea behind the wind phone isn’t new. For millennia, people have imagined the wind as a messenger. In ancient Greece, the god Zephyrus used it to communicate. In Christianity, the Holy Spirit moves through it. But the modern wind phone offers something tangible—an actual phone to hold and speak into, helping mourners process grief in a personal and symbolic way.

“It’s a sacred space. It’s a private space,” says Amy Dawson, a retired teacher and reading specialist who lives between New Jersey and Florida. “Picking up the wind phone is continuing your connection with that person… offloading it into the wind.”

Amy credits the wind phone with saving her life in the wake of unimaginable loss. She now runs the website My Wind Phone, mapping and chronicling the global spread of these grief sanctuaries. She has documented 243 wind phones in the United States, 105 internationally, and at least 15 more under construction.

The concept first took root in Japan. After losing his cousin to cancer, garden designer Itaru Sasaki placed a vintage phone booth in his garden, naming it Kaze no Denwa—the Phone of the Wind. After the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami that claimed over 1,200 lives in Otsuchi, Sasaki relocated the phone booth to a serene hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Today, the original Phone of the Wind remains in Bell Gardia, a tranquil garden six hours north of Tokyo, and has become a global symbol of connection and healing.

Wind phones are now appearing across continents. In Langebaan, South Africa, a wind phone sits at the center of a labyrinth on an equestrian estate. In Willowick, Ohio, a child-height purple phone honors Teddy, a stillborn baby. A sleek, white booth in Tuscany overlooks the sea, inviting visitors to pour their hearts out to the sky. “Who in life has never felt the need to scream at the sky?” wrote the phone’s creator on the My Wind Phone blog. “Or reconnect with those who are no longer there?”

Beautiful settings are a common thread, says Dawson. “Most of them are at quiet, natural places. I think that’s important. It allows us to surrender to our grief and express what we need to express.”

Not everyone embraces the idea, though. In Silverton, Colorado, a bright red British phone booth erected by Nancy Brockman in Hillside Cemetery stirred controversy. Some locals argued it didn’t belong in a place with National Historic Landmark status. But Brockman, who was terminally ill when she installed it, stood by her decision. She died in 2024, and both she and her wind phone remain at rest in the Colorado mountains.

When I interviewed Amy Dawson, it was just a week after my own mother passed away. The conversation was comforting. Amy understood the ache of grief, and we talked openly about how society often avoids it. “We live in a grief-avoidant culture,” she said. “But you can’t avoid grief. You’ve got to live through it.”

The Victorians, in contrast, embraced mourning with rituals, mementos, and open conversations about death. Today, we try to deny it—chasing eternal youth, acting as though death is an optional part of life. Grievers are expected to “move on” quickly and quietly. But grief doesn’t follow a timeline.

Amy receives messages from people all over the world, each using the wind phone for their own deeply personal reasons—some to speak words left unsaid to the dead, others to confront living pain. One man called during a divorce to express his feelings safely. A woman used it to talk to her childhood self. Another called while grieving the foreclosure of her home. “People grieve for so many reasons,” Amy explained.

If you feel the need to speak into the silence, the My Wind Phone website has an interactive map to find the nearest one. Or you can build your own. Rotary phones are ideal for their nostalgic, tactile comfort, though they’re harder to come by. Amy recommends checking garage sales, eBay, Etsy, and Facebook Marketplace. Her website also offers a guide on how to build your own wind phone and choose the right setting.

Amy and Emily had read about Japan’s wind phone together. After Emily passed, creating her own version helped Amy feel close to her daughter again. “It gave me a way to continue to work with her, to be with her, and do something in her memory,” she says. “She’d be all over this. She loved her phone.”

Amy believes deeply that she and Emily are still working together—across planes of existence—helping others navigate the long, winding path of grief.

By Impact Lab