Wind phone installed in Balls Falls Conservation Area to help people navigate their way through grief
Niagara residents now have a new way to help process grief.
Hospice Niagara has created the region's first wind phone, as a way to help people express feelings, share memories, and say goodbye to loved ones who have died.
"People can say what they need to say then release it to the wind," says Sue Shipley, Senior Director, Clinical Services at Hospice Niagara. "Give yourself permission to say and feel whatever is in your heart and mind. In grief, there is no right or wrong; no judgement or critique. Be at one with nature, your thoughts and memories."
The phone is located in the Balls Falls Conservation Area nearly Twenty Mile Creek, and is open year round.
Shipley also says the wind phone concept is helping people talk more about grief itself.
"The messaging that is coming from people who have seen these phones and used them is so supportive and so positive is that what we can see it doing is not just providing that outlet for people to talk to their loved ones, but also as a talking point for all of us to say let's bring grief out into the open."
She adds the reason why Balls Falls was chosen is due to the power of nature.
In 2010, the first wind phone was created in Japan by a man whose cousin died of cancer.
A year later, he opened his wind phone to others who lost loved ones after a devastating tsunami hit the coast of Japan.
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