A phone in Arizona never rings but provides comfort for those who call

1 month ago 2

It is a payphone that requires no payment — no number of nickels or dimes will ever make it work again — but people still use it.

WICKENBURG, Ariz. — There is a phone in Wickenburg that will never ring.

It is a payphone that requires no payment — no number of nickels or dimes will ever make it work again — but people still use it.

It has been inside the Hassayampa River Preserve for a few years now. Those who walk down the winding, shaded dirt trail are often perplexed to find what could be considered a relic among the cottonwood trees.

But there are others who come to the preserve off US 60 to seek out the disconnected phone — to say what they need to get off their chest. Sometimes, it is what they waited too long to say. Sometimes, it's simply to let their loved one know how their life has panned out.

The metal box in the woods is not connected to any earthly lines — it has no dial tone — because it is a wind phone.

A large stump serves as a seat in the quiet, private area of the preserve where grievers can “call” a person who has passed away and continue their relationship by sending their words out into the wind.

Park Supervisor Chris Matthews bought the old payphone near the end of the COVID pandemic. It was in 2022 or ‘23 — Matthews doesn’t remember — but the wind phone was only supposed to be up for the month of May, which is mental health awareness month.

“I took it down and more people came in asking questions, asked where it was,” Matthews said.

Enough people kept asking.

The phone went back up and Matthews got to know more of the “regulars” at the preserve, as well as their losses.

“One of our regulars came in two weeks ago, her husband passed away, she came in and said ‘I need to talk to my husband,’” Matthews said. “An hour or so later, she came walking back with sunglasses covering her red, puffy eyes, but she had a spring in her step. She said ‘Hey, Chris, I’ll see you later. My husband says hi.’”

Matthews has a lot of these stories.

The very first wind phone has a story, too — 5,700 miles away from Wickenburg.

Itaru Sasaki, a garden designer living in Japan’s northern region was grieving his cousin who died of cancer. Sasaki bought a phone booth in 2010 and placed it in his garden.

The following year, a powerful 9.1 magnitude earthquake caused a tsunami that obliterated the coast of Japan and killed over 18,000 people.

Sasaki managed to salvage his phone booth which he opened to the public, allowing mourners a place to call their friends and relatives lost or still missing from the natural disaster.

An estimated 40,000 people and counting have visited Sasaki’s wind phone, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

Wind phones have since appeared in gardens, parks and other public spaces around the globe.

Amy Dawson created a website to track them after her daughter, Emily, passed away following a battle with terminal illness.

“After Emily died, I needed some way to continue our bond and some way to continue our relationship; I had to keep being her mom,” Dawson said. “I had this blue rotary phone, Emily’s favorite color is blue and every Thursday night I play her her favorite songs, I still do, she died on a Thursday and I just started calling her on the phone and it just made me feel better.”

Dawson’s website, mywindphone.com has mapped 199 wind phones in the United States and another 91 internationally. The website also has a space for users to post about their cathartic experiences.

“I had a beautiful story from a woman whose baby died at one day old and she said ‘I didn’t think it was going to help me because of course my baby didn’t have a phone,’” Dawson said. “But she said just being able to offload those feelings, that upset and that anger and that hurt and devastation that [she] was feeling, put those words out there without putting them on her husband.”

Other users have commented:

“I stumbled upon the wind phone and felt a bit crazy dialing my mom until I didn’t. I got to tell her I love her. I haven’t felt connected to her since she died in 2016 like I did today. Thanks for that.”

“We found a telephone of the wind over the weekend at the Life Forest in New Hampshire. We are all still talking about it days later.”

“Having a place to talk with my son, Jamie, who died in a car accident in May of 2022 has been comforting.”

Dawson said parents whose children died of fentanyl poisoning have reached out to her. They are angry at their child for trying drugs and angry at the person who provided the deadly pill. They need an outlet for those emotions.

“Maybe it’s just not one visit but maybe it’s a few phone calls and they work through those feelings by getting them out there and talking about them,” Dawson said.

Her first wind phone experience left her feeling supported. Emily died during the first few weeks of the pandemic when everyone was staying in their houses.

“Traditionally, friends come,” Dawson said. “They are bringing food, you are able to bury or cremate or to celebrate — we couldn’t do any of that.”

Not all wind phone users are grievers. Some have lost their job or their house. Some are going through a divorce or a breakup. Not everyone has a person they can talk to without feeling judged, so they turn to a wind phone.

There are four in Arizona according to Dawson’s map: one in Green Valley, one in Tucson, another in Phoenix and, of course, the Hassayampa River Preserve in Wickenburg.

“It is not for everyone,” Dawson said. “But, for who it is for, it is so powerful.”

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