The phone sat in Ravina Daphtary’s home for some time before she ever picked it up. When she finally did, Daphtary, now 39, spoke to the mother she lost at age 7.
“I didn’t know what I would say, and I’m somebody who has been thinking about this for a long time,” Daphtary recalled to PA Local. “But once I actually did get the courage to pick it up and use it, it created so much lightness in me.”
That same phone, an old rotary model purchased on eBay, is now at the center of a free art installation called The Thread that was co-created by Daphtary and tucked under a row of sumac trees in a busy park atop a converted railroad viaduct near Center City, Philadelphia.
Parkgoers are encouraged to use the phone, which is connected to nothing, to speak with people they normally can’t. Deceased relatives. Loved ones with dementia. Loved ones in prison.
The exhibit is up through Sept. 23. If you can’t make it in person, there is a number you can use (267-314-7161) to similar ends or to record a testimonial from anywhere.
(Editor’s Note: This is not a helpline, but you can find those here.)
WHYY reported on the exhibit late last month and spoke to a grief therapist, Beth Jellinek, who worked on the project with Daphtary and two others. Jellinek said vocalizing your relationship and loss, even through an imaginary phone call, can be transformative.
“I used the phone to call my dad who died 17 years ago,” Jellinek told WHYY. “I introduced him to my husband for the first time.”
The concept, often referred to as a wind phone, first appeared in Japan and grew in notoriety after the 2011 tsunami there that killed nearly 20,000 people. It has since been emulated worldwide, with installations popping up in secluded areas across the U.S., including forests and cemeteries.
The Thread’s location and timing — in the middle of a large Pennsylvania city wracked by gun violence and an overdose epidemic, all while coping with thousands of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic — isn’t coincidental.
“We felt like as a city we had been hit pretty hard over the last couple of years and wanted to create a space to witness our community’s collective grief together,” Daphtary, a Philadelphia resident, said. “It’s really used as a tool to kind of normalize grief.”
So, how should one start a conversation at The Thread?
Daphtary said: “I think the easiest thing is to start by saying ‘Hi.’”
—Colin Deppen, Spotlight PA | 
