The first time Jill Wijangco visited a “wind phone” was in Safety Harbor, Florida, after the death of her son Max in 2022.
Before her loss and before seeing one in person, the idea of using a disconnected phone to share a message with someone who had passed away seemed a little strange to her.
“But when I went there and picked up the phone, I was able to have an actual conversation with Max privately. That was really special. … It just felt like a very safe, welcoming space to let my grief flow,” she said.
Now, Wijangco is working with the Naperville Park District to bring a “wind phone” to the city. It will likely be installed in Pioneer Park in an area near the DuPage River Trail.
As cofounder and executive director for Max’s Mission, an organization that helps families coping with suicide loss, Wijangco said she sees grief every day and believes a wind phone could help others in the Naperville community who may be suffering with their own losses.
“Maybe they don’t go to church, maybe they don’t have a therapist, maybe they don’t have a close group of friends or maybe they have all of those things and this can be another space that they can go to,” she said. “It just seemed like a natural thing for Max’s Mission to want to do for our community of grievers.”
If the project moves forward, it would be the latest collaboration between the park district and Max’s Mission.
Last year, the nonprofit helped erect four murals adjacent to the Rothermel Family Skate Facility in Naperville’s Centennial Park. They serve as both an ode to Wijangco’s son, who was an avid skateboarder, and a message of hope to those who may be struggling with their own mental health challenges.
The wind phone is something of an international phenomenon. It was created by Japanese garden designer Itaru Sasaki in 2010 as a way to help him cope with the death of his cousin.
Sasaki purchased an old-fashioned phone booth that he set up in his garden to use as a means of talking with his deceased family member. Because it was not connected to anything, the idea was that he was speaking his words into the wind, hence the piece’s name.
After a deadly tsunami hit Japan in 2011 and killed thousands of people, Sasaki relocated his phone booth to a public location as a way of helping people mourn the death of friends and family members.
Since then, the concept has expanded globally, with wind phones appearing in places like Australia, the Netherlands and South Africa.
Wijangco said that after she used the wind phone in Safety Harbor, she connected with Laura McCullough, the woman who set up the booth for that location.
“That was even more special getting to meet her because she lost her son suddenly and unexpectedly as well, and that’s the reason why she built that wind phone,” Wijangco said.
Since McCullough lives near the one she installed, she visits it frequently and talks to others who come to use it to connect with their loved ones.
“Just to showcase how this can affect so many different types of people, (McCullough) had a conversation one day with a young boy who was there with his mom and he had went to talk to his dog who had passed,” Wijangco said. “So it can cover all different ages, all different types of deaths, but it’s a place to also connect with other people, if you choose, who may be grieving.”
It is not the first time a wind phone has been proposed to the park district. Last year, local nonprofit ArtForum requested permission to install a temporary wind phone near Netzley Quarry on the Naperville Riverwalk. It was planned to go up in late spring 2026, according to a previous Naperville Sun article.
Naperville Park District Executive Director Brad Wilson said that ArtForum is not moving forward with their proposal at this time. ArtForum declined to share more details.
Should the Max’s Mission wind phone move forward, the nonprofit would fund the entire project. There is currently no set timeline for installation, but the district plans to work with nonprofit to come up with a possible design.
cstein@chicagotribune.com
