Lavoie said death and grief tend to be topics no one really ever wants to talk about.(Lauryn Mackenzie/CHLY 101.7fm)

Grief can be a hard topic to talk about. A new Wind Phone gives a space for people to honour loved ones and help process grief.

A Wind Phone is a non-working phone for people to use as a bridge between those who have passed and those who are still living as a way to process grief.

The concept of a Wind Phone was developed in Japan when in 2011, Itaru Sasaki, built a phone booth in his yard so he could connect with a deceased relative. Following a devastating earthquake and tsunami in the country, he opened his backyard Wind Phone for his neighbours and community to use to process the loss many had faced.

In Nanaimo, a permanent Wind Phone has been installed at the Bowen Road Cemetery by the City of Nanaimo to offer those grieving a space of reflection and healing.

“I'm very aware that as a society, we're generally afraid to talk about death, and that those who are going through a grieving process don't feel comfortable to openly talk about it,” said Carmen Lavoie, a social work professor at Vancouver Island University.

Lavoie was the one who initiated the project with the City.

“It's often something you do in private, and I really think that there's something to be said about supporting one another through the grief process and normalizing death and grief,” she said.

CHLY met with her at the cemetery where the Wind Phone is located.

As a professor, she has researched death, grieving and how to talk about the difficult subject.

She said death and grief tend to be topics no one really ever wants to talk about.

“So when I do bring the topic in, it can sometimes be a surprise for students, but also an aha moment,” she said. “It's like, ‘oh, right, that's that's actually something that's important to all of us, and that we do need to be having these conversations and talking about it and supporting people through that process.’”

She said when she first heard of Wind Phones she thought the idea of the phone seemed like a really easy way to support the community. She went to the City of Nanaimo with the idea.

Dalla Costa said he got inspiration for the design from the ripples drops of water leave. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm)

“We do want to be there for each other, for those we care about at end-of-life, but oftentimes we don't even know how to do that,” she said. “It can be kind of tucked away somewhere or in a hospital or out of sight, which is very different from how it used to be historically for a lot of folks.”

The phone’s sculpture titled “Waves” was created by Nanaimo artist and designer Mauro Dalla Costa.

Dalla Costa told CHLY he got inspiration for the design from the ripples drops of water leave.

“A simple drop can affect a whole surface of water with a tiny thing,” Dalla Costa said. “That was kind of like how you put a message in your phone of your words, and expand it through the infinite.”

He said he had his own personal connection to the design and installation.

“My last time with my father, he was in Argentina, all my communication with him was by phone. So it was very represented in this project,” Dalla Costa said.

The installation also has a personal connection with Lavoie, whose late father’s old phone is used in it.

“My dad worked for Alberta Government Telephones, for his whole career, his whole life, that's where he worked. Over those many years, he collected many phones and would refurbish them and take care of them, and he'd save them for his children and pass them on. He died about two and a half years ago, and for me, knowing that there was this collection of phones, it really seemed like what else could we do with them, other than maybe have a Wind Phone?” Lavoie said. “So the phone that's in there is one of the phones that he collected. It's an old wall phone, rotary, with a cord. It's something he actually carved his initials in the bottom of because that's how he handled his stuff all the time anyway.”

Lavoie said there is no right or wrong way for someone to use the Wind Phone.

“My only suggestion would be, just to begin with visualizing that they are on the other line, that they are on the other end of that call, and just allow yourself to say what you need to say,” Lavoie said.

She said the experience can be very different for each person.

“So children would maybe use it to talk about their friends and their homework to someone who's passed and others might use it to say things that they never got a chance to say in life,” she said.

She said her hope for the Wind Phone is for grieving people to feel comfortable using it and to normalize feelings of grief and feel loss.

The Wind Phone is located near the Howard Ave entrance of the Bowen Road Cemetery.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.