A vintage black rotary phone is housed inside a hutch that looks like a Little Free Library. The curious structure is set back from the shoreline and playground equipment at Arlington\u2019s Bowman Springs Park.<\/p>\n
Behind the small glass-front door is a memorial. The iridescent inside of an abalone shell glimmers next to an assortment of rocks and a piece of notebook paper with \u201cI feel sore for you\u201d written in a childlike scrawl. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s called a wind phone. It is not connected to an active line or recording device, but people still pick up the receiver to say hello to family, friends and significant others who are no longer alive.<\/p>\n
The concept originated in Japan.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Itaru<\/p>\n
In 2010, after his cousin died, a man named Itaru Sasaki set up an old English telephone booth in his garden overlooking the Pacific Ocean. <\/p>\n
Sasaki told a Japanese news station that since his thoughts couldn\u2019t be relayed over a regular phone line, he wanted them to be carried by the wind.<\/p>\n
When a tsunami ravaged the country in 2011, people flocked to the phone. Since then, the concept has been replicated nearly 500 times around the world, according to a map compiled by Amy Dawson, who lives in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Julie Compton looks at the wind phone – a way to share memories and say goodbye to loved ones – Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, at Bowman Springs Park in Arlington. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s just such a normal thing,\u201d Dawson said. \u201cWe call our person, right? I think it’s a very normal thing we do every day that it feels comfortable, and it feels like a way you can connect.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Dawson\u2019s daughter Emily died from a prolonged illness in 2020, she started mywindphone.com<\/a> to track the memorials.<\/p>\n \u201cThey [wind phones] just popped back in my brain because if anybody was using a phone up in heaven or up in the sky, it would be my daughter,\u201d Dawson said. \u201cShe loved her phone.\u201d<\/p>\n Dawson\u2019s thinking behind the project was that if it could help her, it would likely help others as well.<\/p>\n According to her most recent count, there are over 300 wind phones in the United States, including the one in Arlington.<\/p>\n \u2018As a society we\u2019re kind of weird about death\u2019<\/p>\n Karin Kliemann learned about wind phones from a segment<\/a> on CBS Sunday Morning.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was the very coolest thing ever,\u201d Kliemann said.<\/p>\n Kliemann, who was working through the loss of some close friends, contacted the city of Arlington about installing a wind phone in a public park. She got permission to move forward.<\/p>\n Karin Kliemann talks to her loved ones on the wind phone Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, at Bowman Springs Park in Arlington. <\/p>\n Kliemann\u2019s longtime friend, Julie Compton, was touched that her late son and husband were among those Kliemann sought to honor with the wind phone.<\/p>\n Compton\u2019s son died by suicide in 2010 and her husband died after a bout with lung disease in 2016. <\/p>\n Their names, Chantz and David Compton, are printed on a piece of paper tucked inside the phone booth. The brief memorial lists another of Kliemann\u2019s late friends as well as a bible verse and proverb. <\/p>\n \u201cAs a society, we’re kind of weird about death, you know? And really weird about suicide,\u201d Compton said. \u201cIt’s gotten better, but people don’t want to speak of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Compton is looking to change that through her involvement with local groups the Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation<\/a>, Healing After Suicide<\/a> and Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors<\/a>. <\/p>\n She hopes that the wind phone can serve as a springboard for conversations about death and mourning. <\/p>\n \u201cI think people are afraid sometimes that they’re going to upset you to mention that name,\u201d she continued, \u201cbut really it’s much more upsetting when nobody mentions their name and doesn’t remember them.\u201d<\/p>\n Processing grief<\/p>\n Talking into a disconnected phone may sound odd to some, but, for others, it can provide a meaningful release. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n