WELLINGTON, Fla. — Deep inside the Wellington Environmental Preserve, a quiet new addition is helping people connect with loved ones they’ve lost — one call at a time. It’s called a “Wind Phone.” While it doesn’t actually have reception, the meaning behind it is powerful.
“It’s just a little box,” said Debbie Cyran. “You slide it out, pick it up, and you make a phone call — and the wind just carries your words to your loved ones in spirit.”
Debbie knows loss all too well. She lost both her husband, Stanley Cyran in 2018, and her son, Steve Carnahan, to cancer just last year.
In the depths of grief, she connected with a support group called Helping Parents Heal, and that’s where she first learned about the concept of a Wind Phone.
“We took a little trip down to Hillsborough Beach, where there is a wind phone, and it's in a beautiful place,” said Cyran. “It's behind the police station, but it's like right on the edge of the waterway, the intercostal waterway, and it's just absolutely beautiful, and it's very calming. It's comforting. And so I was talking to my friend, and I said, you know, I'd like to do one of those. I think I'd like to put one in my in my garden. Then I decided, you know, the only people that would be able to use it are the people in my family and my friends. So let's put it somewhere where everybody can use it.”
When she brought the idea to the Village of Wellington, officials suggested placing it in the very park where Debbie’s family spent so much time together. For her, it felt meant to be.
“I feel them here,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I come so often. I feel them around me a lot.”
Debbie visits the preserve nearly every week. She often dials her old home phone number before speaking softly into the receiver.
“Hey honey,” she said during her visit with WPTV’s Michael Hoffman. “We’re really doing this.”
At the base of the Wind Phone, visitors have left painted memorial rocks and a notebook filled with handwritten messages — tokens of love, loss, and healing from people who’ve made their own calls to the wind.
“It is beautiful,” Debbie said. “I’m so grateful we put this here, and that so many people can be comforted and healed. It’s part of the healing process.”
The Wind Phone now stands as a quiet reminder that love doesn’t fade, and that even in grief, connection is still possible.
