Wind phones help people feel connected to lost loved ones

THE WOODLANDS, Texas -- In the Woodlands, there's a pair of telephones that are offering solace to those grieving a lost loved one or a beloved pet.

Priyanka Johri owns Acorn Manor Assisted Living, a pet-friendly assisted living center. She knows what it means to lose someone close to you during the holidays, so when she first heard about wind phones, she knew it was an idea she wanted to try. She installed two wind phones - rotary telephones wired to nothing but the wind - in booths outside her business. The phones allow people to make one-way calls to their lost loved ones as a way of coping with their grief.

"Most people have so many things they want to say to their loved one who has passed," said Johri. "They can talk it out loud and say things. People cry, people laugh. It's beautiful."

"I wanted to talk to my mom on the phone one more time, because we used to talk on the phone all the time," said Amy Barton, who visited one of the wind phone booths. "I was in there, I talked to my mom for a while, I told her to tell everybody I loved them, my grandma, my grandpa. I told her how much I loved her and wished she was here for the holidays."

The original wind phone concept first began in Japan back in 2010 and quickly gained popularity across the world. Johri says she uses one of the wind phones herself, to grieve some of the animals that she has helped to rescue.

"Because I have an animal sanctuary and I rescue older animals, I have lost so many of them, and each one that passes takes a piece of me," she said. "I miss them and I talk to them and I know there are so many people out there that are going through the same thing."

Acorn Manor Assisted Living has two wind phones, one meant to speak to people and one meant to speak to pets. The booths will be available for 14 hours throughout the holidays until mid-January.