Wind phones allow grieving people to ‘talk’ to lost loved ones with Fox Valley program

The light green rotary phone is situated in a wooden framed box, a few inches above a toy rotary phone, held in a light blue wooden box.

The toy phone is white with red wheels and a red receiver, a bright yellow dial atop a color wheel. Its cord is blue and a face below the dial looks up as though to speak.

These are wind phones.

Fox Valley Hands of Hope, 200 Whitfield Drive, Geneva, established these two wind phones with a ribbon cutting Nov. 20, National Children’s Grief Awareness Day. November is National Children’s Grief Awareness Month.

Grieving adults and children can sit on a nearby bench and talk to their lost loved ones. The phones are not connected to anything, so their words are carried on the wind – hence the name, wind phone.

An ordinary rotary phone and a child's rotary phone, as wind phones, are set up now at the Fox Valley Hands of Hope. They are called wind phones because they are not attached to anything but the wind, and are available to anyone who needs to talk to a lost loved one. ( Photo provided by Fox Valley Hands of Hope)

Itaru Sasaki began the wind phone concept in 2010 in Japan, near the city of Ōtsuchi, to help him cope with the grief of his cousin’s death. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami killed nearly 16,000 people in the Tōhoku region, Sasaki opened his private phone booth with wind phone to the public.

Replicas have been built around the world, including one at Faith Community United Church of Christ in Prairie Grove.

The U.S. now has 387 wind phones, including the newest in Geneva, according to My Wind Phone website map.

Fox Valley Hands of Hope provides free grief support through groups, individual counseling, school programs, wellness programs and family camps to people in Kane, DuPage, DeKalb, and Kendall counties, according to a news release.

Services are provided in English and Spanish.

November has long been recognized as Children’s Grief Awareness Month – a time dedicated to increasing understanding and support for young people who are grieving, the release stated.

In Illinois, one in 12 children will experience the loss of a parent or sibling before reaching the age of 18.

The National Alliance for Children’s Grief and its partners lead efforts to provide educational resources, host events and share stories to create a more understanding and supportive environment for young people who are grieving.

Fox Valley Hands of Hope in Geneva painted the butterflies at their last session, as expressions of their feelings. Their butterflies will be used to decorate the child's wind phone. November is National Children's Grief Awareness Month and Nov. 20 is National Children's Grief Awareness Day. (Photo provided by Fox Valley Hands of Hope)

The National Institutes of Health also recognizes children’s need for support at a time of loss.

Fox Valley Hands of Hope’s wind phone committee includes Jenny Anderson, Rita Morales Berger Kim Byrne, Mercie Deleon-Brumfield, Marcia Dingman, Lynda McGrath, Cyndi Miller, Kim Rich, Lisa Safran and FVHH liaison Cindy Bravos.

The group hopes to site another wind phone in a public space in the coming year, according to the release.