How did you get through grief?
How did you get through grief? Grief is the most difficult emotion to deal with. There’s no possibility to turn back time, make things right, teleport for a moment to embrace or say what wasn’t said to make amends, or even a good-bye. In 2010, Ikaru Sasaki of Japan lost his cousin, and his grief was unbearable. He then came up with an ingenious idea, that although couldn’t turn back time, but made his grief diminish to a level that he could go on with his life. In his garden he set up an old phone booth, with an old phone inside it. The phone was not connected to anything. He called it ‘’A Wind Phone’’, 風の電話, kaze no denwa in Japanese. When asked for its purpose, Sasaki said “Because my thoughts couldn’t be relayed over a regular phone line, I wanted them to be carried on the wind.” The following year, on March 11. 2011, there was an earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku. Japan. Within minutes 15 000+ people died, many were swept to the sea, never to be found. Sasaki then opened his ‘’Wind Phone’’ to the public, and since his phone received over 30 000 visitors. ‘’Wind phones’’ then started appearing all over the world. there are several thousands of them, usually located in parks, or near churches. Research is being conducted on the remarkable effect of those wind phones on grieving people’s mental, emotional, even physical health (all 3 categories are affected by grief). Books have been published, and films have been made about ‘’Wind Phones’’, and their role in dealing with grief for a loved one. Below is a painting of the first ‘’Wind Phone’’ in Japan.