Words on the Wind: Portsmouth “Windphone” offers grief support for those who’ve lost loved ones

A converted phonebooth offers solace and a moment of quiet reflection

Photos by Jessica Pohl

On the edge of a grassy field in Portsmouth, nestled beneath some trees, sits a solitary phonebooth. Once used for making curbside calls, it has been lovingly transformed into a windphone — a sanctuary of sorts where anyone grieving the loss of a loved one can enter, pick up the red rotary phone, and send a message out into the ether.

The vintage booth, marked with a faded Bell Atlantic logo across the top, no longer contains a working phone, just a symbolic one. Stepping through the bifold door, visitors are invited to sit and share memories and moments with those who are no longer here; their private conversations are then carried across the wind, from one plane to another.

Inside, there is a collection of notebooks filled with handwritten, heartfelt messages, all left by visitors seeking solace. Outside, rocks painted with ladybugs and sunsets surround the booth. Blue wooden signs read “You are welcome here” and “If you have words to send on the wind please come in.”

This is the Goosefields Windphone, located along the Sakonnet Greenway Trail, which is managed by the Aquidneck Island Land Trust and runs behind the family home of Dawn Emsellem-Wichowski.

“We notice people walking through this path all the time,” says Emsellem-Wichowski, as she walks through her garden toward the phone booth. “I heard a story about a windphone in Japan for people to talk to their loved ones, and I just knew I wanted to do this.”

The first windphone originated in Japan and was created by Itaru Sasaki, who lost his cousin to cancer in 2010. Sasaki installed an old phone booth on a rocky bluff overlooking the sea and used it to speak with his departed cousin. It became a coping mechanism for his grief.

The next year, after a tsunami and earthquake took the lives of nearly 20,000 people in Japan, Sasaki opened his private garden to the public as a communal space for grieving.

Emsellem-Wichowski decided to build a similar space on her property. She once lived above the former Hambly Funeral Home on Red Cross Avenue in Newport and often reflected on the ways in which people mourn death, an inevitable part of life.

She found the rotary phone on eBay and the phone booth in Providence through Facebook marketplace. She was taking her time with the project until the Covid-19 pandemic hit, at which point she knew she needed to finish the windphone for the sake of the community.

“When the pandemic happened, I thought it was similar to the tsunami in Japan because loved ones were passing away and their families couldn’t see them, so I wanted to finish this project,” says Emsellem-Wichowski.

She is the director of library services at Salve Regina University in Newport and says the windphone provides both a verbal and a written outlet. Visitors may speak or put their words on a page in the notebooks she leaves in the booth. Over the years, five journals have been filled with memories, sweet notes, and drawings.

An entry from October 2021 reads: “This place is absolutely amazing. So lovely & peaceful. What a beautiful way to stay connected to loved ones. You all are a special bunch to make this for those of us who need some healing ♥. — all the way from Lexington, Ohio.”

“When I think about the memories people share in the logs, it just reminds me that every moment is precious, and if you lived your life well there will be people who not only miss you, but have beautiful memories,” says Emsellem-Wichowski. “I love doing things that provide an outlet for people where they
can do what they want with the space.”

Word has spread about the windphone, which was officially opened to the public in July of 2021. A post in a local Facebook group promoted it, as did a segment on Channel 10 News. More recently, the Memorial Funeral Home in Newport highlighted the windphone in its newsletter, raising awareness of its capacity to console those experiencing grief.

“A long time ago in grief history, people used to think cutting off relationships with those who passed was the best thing for those left behind,” explains Kim Shute, director of community relations and grief educator at Memorial Funeral Home and Connors Funeral Home in Portsmouth. “Now we know it’s not the best for grievers because we want to continue on that relationship, which is called continuing bonds.”

Grief classes and phone calls to bereaved families are among the resources the funeral homes provide.

“Everybody will be touched with death if they are connected and in relationship with other human beings,” says Shute. “The windphone is a gift to the Portsmouth community, offering a public space to sit with their sadness, pain, loss, and new reality — both a communal experience and an individual, private one.”

Many people visit gravesites to mark their loved ones’ birthdays or anniversaries, notes Shute. She hosted a community workshop about dealing with grief around the holidays, which can be an especially emotional time, at the Middletown Public Library on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025 (For more information about related programming, visit www.middletownpubliclibraryri.org)

“Anything that can offer support to those struggling with the unimaginable through such a challenging time is of great use,” says Shute. “Healthy individuals make for healthy communities and if we can make a difference in the life of someone that’s struggling, even if it’s one person, that matters.”

Every so often, a visitor to the Goosefields windphone will leave behind a token like a stained-glass angel, and someone who needs it will take it with them after their visit. Emsellem-Wichowski adds her own offerings of worry stones that she collects from Sakonnet Point, where the ocean waves smooth them. Visitors can carry the white stones with them when they leave.

A neighboring high school ceramics class once visited and left bowls to hold the worry stones and a cup for the pens. The students left inspired to create a windphone of their own, Emsellem-Wichowski says.

“Death is something we all have in common because everyone’s loved and lost someone, and it’s something that feels very human,” she says. “It’s often a solitary experience, but looking at the logs, you realize so many people are going through the same thing.”

Emsellem-Wichowski said she hopes to continue evolving the space by adding new interactive elements alongside an existing magnetic poetry board, wind-moving metal horses, and a seat beneath a wooden arbor overlooking a neighboring field where cattle graze.

“It’s a truly beautiful thing,” she says. “It’s taken on a life of its own.”

Follow the Goosefields windphone on Instagram at @goosefieldswindphone. And to locate other windphones across the world, visit www.mywindphone.com.