Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

Deep inside Squaxin Park, in the state capitol of Olympia here in Washington State, there’s an old wall phone installed on a large tree. People use the phone to call people who have died. Relatives. Friends. Old lovers. People they loved, people they didn’t like. They call to make amends, to tell them what’s new, to say how much they miss them, to say, perhaps, they don’t miss them at all. To say the things they didn’t get a chance to say when the person was alive. Things they were too shy to say. Things they were too angry to say, The “wind phone” is popular and in a way, also extremely powerful. People describe it as being “very cathartic”. The whole thing was the brainstorm of a man named Corey Dembeck, who installed it several years ago with the exact use it has. The government, and people in general in this neck of the woods, take their tree maintenance very seriously. So yes, he got the proper permits, and the majestic tree wasn’t in any way harmed. It’s not just for local folks either. People fly into Sea-Tac from other parts of the country, to drive to Olympia and place their calls on the phone in the woods. I wonder if, now that it’s been publicized here and there, other wind phones will spring up in different places. They may……….but I’m convinced this one is the special bona fide line to the “other side”. I so miss my sister who died last year and I talk to her in my head all the time. Olympia’s only about sixty miles from my house. One of these days, I’m going to go down and call her.

Here’s a link to the story from the Seattle Times. You can do a cut and paste if it’s non-clickable.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/the-power-of-a-one-way-phone-call-to-cope-with-grief/

Photograph courtesy dreamdv2 at Pixabay.com