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The grieving process is long and difficult and at some point after losing a loved one, most people come to that place where they just wish they could have one more conversation with their dearly departed. Clinton Township Senior Center Assistant Director Debbie Travis believes the new wind phone, which was expected to be installed and available for use by Aug. 21, will help people through the grieving process by allowing them to speak their feelings.

“The idea fits in so well with our center and all of the things that we do,” said Travis. “It is a therapeutic way to process grief. “Pick up this phone and your message is going to go wherever you want it to go.



” The project is a collaboration between Dignity Memorial, Lowe’s store 1716 in Clinton Township, and Senior Center officials. Lowe’s tagged the wind phone and recent improvements at the bocce courts as a Lowe’s Hometown Community Project. Dignity Memorial sponsored the purchase of the phone, the bench and plaques that are displayed in the pergola.

Resurrection Cemetery sponsors a grief support group that meets at the Senior Center and the idea for the wind phone evolved in part from that group. Lowe’s built the 8×8 pergola with three slatted sides with the south side open and looking into the woods. There is a natural bench inside the pergola and the red, rotary dial wind phone itself is inside of a custom-built box that looks like a British phone booth.

Related Articles A wood chip path leads from the sidewalk to the pergola, which will be nestled just west of the Center’s bocce courts. Signage explains the purpose of the wind phone and how to use it. “We want to create a very sacred place and a place where people can go to process their feelings,” said Travis.

“There might be something you didn’t get a chance to say to that person, you might just want to tell them you miss them, or you might feel angry and want to tell them that too.” The wind phone concept started in Japan where Itaru Sasaki created a “phone of the wind” in 2010 while grieving his cousin who died from cancer. He purchased an old fashioned phone booth and put it in his garden, then installed an obsolete rotary phone unconnected to any network.

Sasaki said the wind phone allowed him to heal and to feel close to his cousin who had passed. “So the idea burst from someone’s grief,” said Travis. “He devised this grief therapy and it took off.

” Related Articles The wind phone allows those who might be keeping their feelings inside a chance to express them and gain closure or simply recognize the possibility of intangible planes of existence. Currently there are 186 wind phones in the United States; 87 international; and 15 “coming soon” including the location at the Clinton Township Senior Center. The Clinton Township Board of Trustees approved the installation of the wind phone at its Aug.

12 meeting. “When I first heard about this, I didn’t understand what it was,” said Clinton Township Supervisor Bob Cannon. “But once I understood what it was, I liked it.

” Senior Committee member Fran Badalamente said this “hotline” to loved ones is welcome. “This is a lovely idea and something that will add to our center and be very helpful for people who are going through the grief process,” Badalamente said. “They can feel they can communicate in way that is personalized to them” Trustee Julie Matuzak noted the wind phone is a much more environmentally friendly way to communicate with a lost loved one than letting off balloons or fire lanterns.

“Those are really bad for the environment,” said Matuzak. “Animals ingest the balloons and wires get tangled in farmland so this is the same concept but more personal because you are talking on the phone and at the same time more environmentally friendly.”.

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