VERMILION, Ohio — In the heart of Vermilion, there are signs of life everywhere. But if you make your way a little past town, into Sherod Park, there's a place where only the sound of swaying trees and your most vulnerable thoughts can be shared.
"I was talking to a colleague who lost her mom, and we were talking about how hard it is," Jody Booker says. "She had said she had heard about the wind phone."
A wind phone is a safe haven for the words you've always wanted to say to a loved one on the other side.
"You were such a good friend. I think of you all the time," said Bonnie Simon, while using the wind phone.
When Jody lost her mom Darlene three years ago, she knew she had to advocate for a wind phone.
"Vermilion has a tree commission, so I contacted the arborist or the tree commission to talk about not ruining the trees and what we needed to do," Jody said. "I got the courage to go and stand in front of everybody and tell her story, tell my story."
The decision was easy.
"They voted unanimously to allow me to have it here."
"Here" is where Darlene's best friend Bonnie Simone likes to check in.
"I think you just learn to cope," Bonnie says. "Life is never the same, and there's days that I just, long for her."
Talking helps.
"I miss you so much. I love you. I'll talk to you later. Bye," Bonnie said on the wind phone.
"Not everybody was able to say goodbye like I was," Jody said. "Sometimes, you know, family's out of town and don't make it in, or it's a long lost friend that you lost communication with and you hear that they passed."
If you feel like it's too late to bear your soul, it's not.
"You lose that connection and then it bothers you for so long and you have no way of getting rid of it," Jody explained, "and I hope those people come to the phone, they make that call."
Those calls have been made all over the world — what started in Japan as a way to help families cope with the 2011 tsunami now is an international movement of healing.
In Hartville, another woman recognized the value in wind phones based on her own tragedies.
"Aug. 12, 2021, my son-in-law passed quickly and unexpectedly from a cardiac arrest," Daria Sherman recalled. "And prior to that, my 19-year-old son had died in a workplace accident."
Daria knows grief all too well. She's written dozens of self-help books and children's books. She's a spiritual healer and therapist, too, and is also the reason for the wind phone tucked away in the Quail Hollow Park woods.
"While family and friends, they come and they bring their casserole and give their condolences, you're still in shock," Daria says. "And then the world moves on."
Yet, you don't.
"Grief isn't linear. It's a spiral, and it comes in waves and a lot of emotions flare up."
With Stark Park's blessing, Daria's other son-in-law built the wind phone. It's placement among nature and all it's serenity was purposeful.
In the wind phone booth, tucked away in the woods, your heart can be free, and a path to acceptance can begin.
"Now, acceptance does not mean that you like it or agree with it," Daria admits. "It just means that you're saying, 'OK, this is the way that it is,' and when you get to that level of acceptance, then you begin your journey towards healing."
The pain of losing her sons Paul and Chris never quite goes away for Daria. The wind phone can help, she says, as it offers up a bridge between the life you live now and the love you once shared.
"I feel the presence of my son, specifically everywhere, in every breath I take, in every leaf, every tree, in all of life, in every song I hear in the conversations, I feel him everywhere," Daria said.
It's a powerful union: grief and gratitude, and they'll exist together forever.
"We live in a world that's dualistic and a world of polarity," Daria says. "So, it's the balance. ... So become larger than your grief and hope will make its way."
To visit the Vermilion wind phone, click HERE.
To visit the Hartville wind phone, click HERE.
To see wind phones around the world, click HERE.
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