Grief support services bring peace and comfort

There’s a place where a glass-paned, retro-vibe phone booth sits in a hilltop garden. That place is Ōtsuchi, Japan, and when you pick up the phone and dial a number, you begin a conversation meant more for the heart than the ear.

That’s because the nonfunctioning phone, called a “wind phone,” isn’t connected to a phone line. It’s connected to love and the bonds we still carry with those we’ve lost.

It was started in 2010 by a man named Itaru Sasaki when he lost his cousin to cancer. People can “call” to speak to their deceased loved ones, firm in the belief that their words will be carried by the wind to an alternate plane.

While there may be no voice on the other end, there is healing, harmony, and hope.

Healing in saying words left unsaid. Harmony in the peaceful breezes that blow outside the booth. Hope that those words reach their destination.

Grief support for patients and their families

To use a wind phone, you don’t have to travel to Ōtsuchi. There are 450-ish wind phones around the world, including one at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. Nestled in the hospital’s meditation room, the phone is one of Montage Health’s many grief support services and resources.

“These services support patients, families, and community members experiencing grief,” says Rev. Laine Julian, Montage Health’s spiritual care services chaplain manager.

Something especially important during the holidays.

Cornerstones of this support are monthly in-person and online grief support groups, open to anyone.

“Losing someone is a really big deal,” Julian says, “and these groups help us claim it. We don’t have to pretend that we didn’t spend so many years of our lives with that person.”

Or, in some cases, no years at all. Montage Health also offers an online support group for those who have lost a child due to miscarriage or in the first year of the baby’s life.

Brittney Borlik, perinatal mental health educator for Ohana, Montage Health’s youth and family mental health program, calls it “invisible grief.”

“So much of pregnancy and infant loss is misunderstood,” says Borlik, who co-leads the group with Krista Reuther, Ohana’s assistant director of community health and prevention services. “You’re grieving the life that was lost, and you’re grieving the life you thought you would be living.”

The group, made possible by grant support from Montage Health Foundation, meets monthly and is open to anyone who has had a pregnancy loss or the loss of an infant up to 1 year old.

“Grief can be misunderstood by someone who hasn’t gone through it,” Borlik says. “It’s hard for others to get it right. There are certain losses — divorce, pet loss, miscarriage — that society does not honor with anywhere near the reverence it gives to other deaths. And during the holidays, what’s often portrayed is a feeling of happiness. It's jarring to feel something so different, like grief.”

Julian, Borlik, and Reuther count on their grief support services to help ease the journey.

“Our hope,” Borlik says, “is at the end of the day, people feel less alone.”

More grief support services from Montage Health

Montage Health also offers:

• Bereavement services — One-on-one phone or in-person help for those navigating loss
• Volunteer chaplains — Spiritual support for patients and families as patients near the end of life
• Outpatient mental health services — For those experiencing prolonged or unmanageable grief
• Ceremonies for veterans — Honoring the service of veterans nearing the end of life
• To learn more about these services, call (831) 622-2746.