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Wind Phones – The Line Isn’t Quite Dead

When Rituals Disappear: Finding Grief in Unexpected Places

In March 2020, my patient died in her daughter's home under hospice care—on the very day Washington State went into COVID-19 lockdown. Her body was taken away quietly, and then… nothing. No funeral. No gathering of friends. No casseroles dropped off at the door. No hugs.
For months, as the lockdown stretched on, thousands of families like mine faced the same reality: the rituals that help us grieve—the shared meals, the embraces, the communal storytelling—were stripped away.
As a clinical social worker and health scholar with four decades of experience in end-of-life care her daughter understood grief on a professional level. But when it was her mom, she needed something more than theory. She needed a way to tend to her grief in isolation.
That’s when I learned about the wind phone and shared with her.

What Is a Wind Phone?

Imagine a simple phone—rotary or push-button—placed in a quiet spot outdoors, often inside a booth with a chair nearby. The phone isn’t connected to anything.
People visit these wind phones to “call” their loved ones who have died. It’s a one-way conversation, a chance to say what was left unsaid, to tell stories, to reminisce, to feel connected again.
For many, it’s a deeply moving, life-affirming experience.
Today, there are about 225 wind phones scattered across the U.S., usually in parks, along trails, or on church grounds. They’re free, open to the public, and often built by someone honoring a loved one.
The idea began in Japan in 2010. Itaru Sasaki, a garden designer grieving a relative, built a phone booth in his yard so he could “talk” to them. Months later, the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami killed more than 20,000 people. Sasaki opened his wind phone to neighbors, and soon, people traveled from across Japan to speak through the “phone of the wind.”
Since then, wind phones have quietly spread around the world.

Why It Matters

In American culture, we often talk about “closure”—as if grief is something to finish and file away. But grief doesn’t work like that. Yes, the sharp pain softens over time, but waves of sadness can return years later, triggered by a smell, a song, or a memory.
To date, there’s no research on wind phones. We can’t say scientifically whether they help people cope. But the fact that they’ve multiplied so quickly suggests something important: people need ways to engage with grief.
And for thousands who have tried it, there is comfort in picking up that silent receiver and speaking into the wind.

 Marc D Malamud

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Dancing Through the Tunnel: A Playful Take on Death’s Grand Adventure
Tunnel of Death

So, here’s the thing — death. Yep, that big ol’ taboo that everyone tiptoes around like it’s a sleeping dragon. But guess what? It’s not a monster. It’s not even the end. It’s more like the next chapter in a cosmic choose-your-own-adventure book.

Most folks freak out about death not because of the body going kaput, but because of the unknown. That mysterious “what’s next?” beyond the curtain of time. But when you start tuning into your inner world — that quiet, wise part of you — death stops being a scary full stop and starts looking like a juicy transition. A bridge. A cosmic portal from the land of stuff to the realm of soul.

Now, death isn’t just about the body clocking out. There’s a whole energetic jazz happening behind the scenes. It’s like your psyche sends out a signal — “Hey, time to wrap up this Earth gig!” And that signal? It’s not empty. It’s packed with meaning, like a suitcase full of life’s greatest hits and missed cues.

As someone nears the end, their attention starts to drift inward — into what I like to call the Tunnel of Death. Sounds dramatic, right? But it’s not a horror show. It’s more like a magical slide between worlds. This tunnel is part of our psycho-spiritual blueprint. It’s the same vibe as birth — an entrance and an exit, both sacred, both wild.

Inside the tunnel, things get real. You float above your body, like a drone with feelings, and suddenly you’re watching your life like a movie. The good, the messy, the unresolved — all playing out in glorious HD. But here’s the twist: it’s not about judgment. It’s about clarity. Healing. Like finally understanding the plot twist you missed the first time.

As you glide deeper, the emotional baggage starts to unpack itself. Old hurts, sticky attachments, unresolved drama — they bubble up, get a cosmic rinse, and begin to dissolve. It’s like a soul spa. And sometimes, you bump into familiar faces — loved ones, guides, maybe even your childhood dog (hey, who knows?). These encounters aren’t just memories; they’re love in its purest form, showing up to say, “You did good.”

And then — the light. Oh, the light. Not a flashlight or a train (don’t worry), but the radiant essence of your true self. It’s the part of you that’s been cheering you on from behind the scenes, lifetime after lifetime. Some see it as a glowing being, others feel it as a deep knowing. Either way, it’s the final wink before merging with something vast and beautiful.

Now, while most souls exit through the crown (classic move), there’s a VIP route through the solar plexus — the cosmic belly button of spiritual power. If you’ve done the inner work, danced with your immortal self during life, this path offers a shortcut. No tunnel detours, just a direct flight to the divine.

And here’s the kicker: we’re living with death every single moment. It’s not lurking in the shadows — it’s woven into life itself. Like the bassline in your favorite song, always there, keeping the rhythm. When we stop fearing it and start vibing with it, life gets clearer, richer, more aligned with our eternal groove.

So let’s not whisper about death like it’s a secret. Let’s talk about it, dance with it, and maybe even laugh with it. Because in the grand cosmic play, death isn’t the villain — it’s just the scene change.

 

Start a Conversation

Marc D Malamud

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Ohio Hybrid Death Cafe

Death Cafe Cup

I am partnering with Cindy Christani of The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County to hold a In Person and Virtual Death Cafe.  The first one to be Saturday, November 8, 2025 @ 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Eastern.  

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Marc D Malamud

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Forgiveness at the End of a Life

(A Registered Social Worker, Maureen Pollard obtained a Bachelor of Social Work degree in 1992 and has been working in the field of for more than 32 years. She earned a Master of Social Work in 2011, and is certified as a teacher/trainer of adults, culturally inclusive educato, and music integrated therapy. Maureen belongs to the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, Ontario Association of Social Workers, Bereavement Ontario Network, Hospice and Palliative Care Ontario, and the Canadian Counseling and Psychotherapy Association. This article, used with permission, appeared online at https://www.griefstories.org/forgiveness-at-the-end-of-a-life/.)

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One of the most difficult things about death can be the experience of unresolved conflict. When we’ve had a turbulent relationship with the person we are grieving for, it can really complicate our feelings. Forgiveness is a good goal, but it can be hard to navigate.

When a person is dying

It may be that someone who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and is moving toward the end of life wants to tend to unfinished business. They may feel remorse, or have a strong desire to make amends and set things right. If this is the case, it may be that you welcome their overtures and feel ready to forgive them.

If you don’t feel ready, you are not obligated to forgive. Some damage is deep, with far-reaching consequences. Your healing will not necessarily happen on a timeline that works with the time that is left to the dying person who seeks forgiveness.

Alternately, it may be that you want to forgive their actions and look for opportunities to mend the rifts, but they continue whatever attitude and behavior caused the wounds you feel. It’s important to know that some people do not seek to redeem themselves in response to impending death. That is not your fault and you can’t control it. You can still do the work of releasing yourself from the cycle that has harmed you.

When a person has died

When someone dies suddenly, there is no opportunity for conversations or actions that might have happened to help heal emotional wounds in a relationship. You’re left with unsettled feelings that may include anger, guilt, regret, and shame, with no way to address them directly with the person.

Finding forgiveness

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” – Mark Twain

It may be helpful to remember that forgiveness is for you. It is a personal process of releasing the pain of past wrongs against you. Forgiveness can happen whether or not the other person shows regrets or tries to make up for past wrongs.

Acknowledge your pain. Accept it as your response to the other person, and allow yourself to feel the wound.

Seek some understanding of their motivation. What led them to those hurtful attitudes and behaviors? Consider the possibility that they were doing the best that they could, even if their best was not very good and may have caused you to feel quite hurt.

Release yourself from the pain. Give yourself permission to forgive them. When you are ready, forgiveness is a great gift that you give to yourself.

Marc D Malamud

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Study Into Who is Least Afraid of Death

(This article is provided by the University of Oxford News and Events. This article, used with permission, was posted online at https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-03-24-study-who-least-afraid-death.)

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A new study examines all robust, available data on how fearful we are of what happens once we shuffle off this mortal coil. They find that atheists are among those least afraid of dying … and, perhaps not surprisingly, the very religious.

Religion has long been thought to be a solution to the problem of death. Notions of an afterlife are nearly universal, though there is great diversity in the details. Given this close association between religion and death, researchers have long supposed that religion lessens fear about death. It stands to reason that religious believers should be less fearful of death than nonreligious individuals, or does it? A systematic review of high quality international studies led by researchers at the University of Oxford paints a more complicated picture. It shows that the very religious and atheists are the groups who do not fear death as much as much as those in-between in a paper published in the journal, Religion, Brain and Behavior.

“Meta-analyses are statistical procedures used to extract and combine the findings of multiple studies. This produces a better estimate of the consensus in a field than looking at individual studies,” explains Dr Jonathan Jong, a Research Associate at the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology and Research Fellow at Coventry University. Jong led a team of researchers from Oxford, Coventry, Royal Holloway, Gordon College, Melbourne University and Otago University to search systematically for research on the relationship between death anxiety and religious belief.

“Religious people are less afraid of death than nonreligious people. It may well be that atheism also provides comfort from death.” — Dr Jonathan Jong, Research Associate of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology

The team found 100 relevant articles, published between 1961 and 2014, containing information about 26,000 people worldwide. Combining this data, they found that higher levels of religiosity were weakly linked with lower levels of death anxiety. The effects were similar whether they looked at religious beliefs such as belief in God, and an afterlife, or religious behaviour like going to church, and praying.

Some studies also distinguished between intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity. Extrinsic religiosity is when religious behaviour is motivated by pragmatic considerations such as the social or emotional benefits of following a religion, whereas intrinsic religiosity refers to religious behaviour driven by ‘true belief’. The meta-analysis showed that while people who were intrinsically religious enjoyed lower levels of death anxiety, those who were extrinsically religious revealed higher levels of death anxiety.

The findings were mixed across the studies, with only 30% of the effects showing this finding. Surprisingly, perhaps, 18% of the studies found that religious people were more afraid of death than non-religious people; and over half the research showed no link at all between the fear of death and religiosity. This mixed picture shows that the relationship between religiosity and death anxiety may not be fixed, but may differ from context to context. Most of the studies were conducted in the United States, with a small number carried out in the Middle East and East Asia. This makes it difficult to estimate how the pattern varies from culture to culture, or religion to religion, says the paper.

Based on previous research, the team also checked for curvilinear patterns in the data. Rather than assuming that the religiosity is either positively or negatively related to death anxiety, some researchers have posited that the relationship is like an upside-down U shape, with religious believers and disbelievers showing less death anxiety than people in between. Out of the 100 studies, the team only found 11 studies that were robust enough to test this idea; however, of these, almost all (10) formed this pattern.

Dr Jong commented: “It may be that other researchers would have found this inverse-U pattern too if they had looked for it. This definitely complicates the old view, that religious people are less afraid of death than nonreligious people. It may well be that atheism also provides comfort from death, or that people who are just not afraid of death aren’t compelled to seek religion.”

(The research paper, The religious correlates of death anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis, is published in Religion, Brain & Behavior.)

Marc D Malamud

Transitioning Doula

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  1. Blog ~ Grief and Justice: Who Gets to Be Mourned?
  2. Blog ~ Is it healthy to grieve before a loss?
  3. Blog ~ Finding Meaning at the End of Life
  4. Blog ~ It Takes a Village ~ Rethinking Death Care as Community Care

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Obituaries & Memorials

At Transitioning Doula, we believe that love continues long after a last breath.
This space is devoted to tender remembrance—a place to share stories, blessings, and the everyday moments that made each life uniquely precious. Through these tributes, we honor each beloved soul’s transition, hold their spirit close, and gently accompany the hearts who continue on without them.

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