Phone Calls to the Deceased: an Exercise to Deal with Grief

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Phone Calls to the Afterlife

I saw a news story the other day about a telephone in the middle of a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. The phone is attached to nothing. People can go there to talk to their loved ones who are deceased, and many people do. Although it might seem odd to some people, many people find solace from these phone calls with dead relatives.

Release Letters

Personally, I am not surprised. When I worked as a counsellor, I frequently suggested to people that they write letters to people who were either deceased or no longer in their lives for one reason or another. It can be very cathartic, a wonderful release, to let out all your emotions on paper or in some other form when you cannot, for whatever reason, actually communicate with a person. (By the way, if the person you are writing to is still living and you have a lot of negative things to say, consider burning the letter instead of sending it. It achieves the same goal for you without causing problems. That is a personal choice, of course.)

Write Back if You Like

You can even write a letter back from the other person to yourself. Why not? Sometimes, that can be extremely healing. There are some things we wish that another person would say that they will never say, either because they never will be evolved enough to say it or because, sadly, they passed away and can no longer say anything at all. I think this can be healing in a lot of situations, especially if someone died when you were not speaking to them or in the middle of an argument.

Releasing a Burden of Guilt

It is normal for people to have arguments and it is natural for people to die. It is very sad the number of people who carry a terrible burden of guilt and/or sadness because they just happened to say something mean or be in the middle of an argument when their loved one passed on. Since my adult daughter is extremely argumentative and often gets very upset with me, I think I am in a reasonable position to say that, well, in my case, at least, if I happened to die in the middle of one of our many arguments, I would not want her to feel bad about it forever. I would want her to know it was just one more argument we would eventually have worked through had I lived long enough.

Conclusion: Talking to a Candle

All of that being said, I felt terribly sad and guilty after my mother passed away, and I felt that way for a long time. Then, I started burning the thick beeswax pillar candles we bought for her funeral and talking to them as though they were her. At first, I felt a bit silly doing it. Then, I started to think of them as “phone calls.” I don’t know whether I believe in the after life or, really, anything at all. However, I found that I would laugh, cry, and generally experience relief from my candle “phone calls” with my mother. It was a little like talking to her again.

The message I got from her was that she wanted me to be happy and not to feel sad and guilty. I know for a fact that is what she would say if she was alive. It’s interesting. We get to know some people so well that we actually can have a conversation with a candle or a broken phone or just write a one-sided letter and have it be as though we are communicating with that person. I imagine that the parts of our brain that were active when we were communicating with them while they were alive become re-activated when we communicate with the candle, etc.

So, even if it feels strange or even a bit crazy at first, talking to your loved ones who have passed on can be a very healthy way to express and work through your grief. You might already do this, and maybe you have done it for years and will be reading this thinking that it is obvious. However, for other people, it might not seem so obvious. Especially for those of us who were not raised to believe in an after-life, it can be challenging to talk to a candle, and, I think for some people who do believe, depending on your beliefs, it might seem like blasphemy. I think it is very important to find rituals that help you to grieve and recover in ways that are healthy for you, and this might take time and some experimentation.

If this fits for you, that is great. If not, you will find your own way.