In a modest garden between a church and a school in Littleton sits a rotary-dial phone exposed to the elements. A beige receiver is connected to a sun-bleached housing. The yellowed housing, in turn, is connected … to nothing.
A handmade sign reads, “This phone is here for everyone who has lost a loved one. The phone is an outlet for those who have messages they wish to share with their lost friends and family. It’s a phone for memories and saying the goodbyes you never got to say.”
Russell Young, a member of Columbine United Church, arranged to have the phone installed. It is known as a wind phone– part of a global network that began in 2010 in Japan.
“The wind, to me, is a way of messaging,” said Young. “It’s like using a phone or calling somebody to have that message carried off in the wind.”
Young speaks to his late wife Patricia every Sunday morning on the wind phone at this church. She died of a sudden illness in January 2024.
Sometimes, he hears back.
“I talk to her constantly and she tells me how much she loves me and wishes she was still here,” Young added.
There are at least seven wind phones in Colorado, according to mywindphone.com. In Cañon City, one was installed inside St. Thomas More Hospital in November.
“This was the conception … by a few individuals within the community here,” said Deacon Marco Vegas of St. Thomas More Hospital. “They were the ones that put out the money to purchase this booth.”
Deacon Vegas runs grief support groups and coordinates the installation.
“We had an artist from the community here as well, Beth Ache. And she was the one that did the artwork on the outside.”
The old wooden phone booth, decorated with glittery birch trees, ladybugs and butterflies, sits in the corner of the hospital's second-floor waiting room. The phone booth’s door still creaks open and closed, insulating the caller from the bustle outside.
“I think this allows an individual things that are left unsaid…where they can come in, close the door, sit down, pick up the phone, and have that one-way conversation with their loved one,” said Vegas. “And help get … reconciliation. Because you never have closure from a loss. You're always going to grieve that person.
The force behind the aforementioned MyWindphone website is Amy Dawson. She lost her 25-year-old daughter Emily in 2020.
“She was a young woman with special needs and her cell phone was everything. It’s how she kept connected with her brother and sister who are her best friends,” Dawson explained. “When you have special needs, you’re always looking for connection. And her cell phone was her connection.”
Dawson thought if there was anyone answering a windphone in heaven, it was Emily.
“So I created a little private wind phone for me … then I opened it up.”
In Colorado, Dawson is particularly drawn to the wind phone in Silverton.
“It was installed by a woman named Nancy Brockman. She was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. She erected it in a cemetery. It’s gorgeous.”
Dawson notes there have been complaints the red British phone booth clashes with its serene surroundings. But she said she received permission from the landowner, which is an important step before installing a windphone.
Some, Dawson said, have been ordered removed because they weren’t put up through the proper channels.
“On the website, I have all sorts of sample letters to make requests and sample brochures people can use to explain what a wind phone is.”
There are at least seven wind phones in Colorado, including on the Riverwalk in Pueblo and at a funeral home in Colorado Springs.
