Yes. Wanting to talk to someone you've lost is one of the most ordinary parts of grief, and the research of the last thirty years says it can be good for you. This page is the honest version of that answer: what the studies found, and the ways people actually do it, from talking in the car to a phone booth in a park to a recording they kept. Each one is described for what it is, including the one we make.
Is it normal to want to talk to someone who has passed?
It's close to universal. You tell them about your day in the car. You ask them where they put the warranty. You argue with them. You say goodnight. People who would never describe themselves as spiritual do this, and people who never cried at the funeral do it too.
For most of the last century the advice was the opposite: that grief meant detaching, and that still talking to them was a sign you hadn't. In 1996, grief researchers argued that staying connected to the person who passed is normal and can be healthy, not denial (Klass, Silverman and Nickman, 1996, Continuing Bonds). That book gave the idea its name, continuing bonds, and it is now the mainstream view in grief care. The relationship doesn't end. It changes form.
So if you've been talking to them and wondering whether you should stop: you don't have to.
Does talking to someone who has passed help, or does it keep you stuck?
It can help, and sometimes it hurts, and the research is honest about both. A review of 79 studies found ongoing bonds with the person who passed can comfort people and help them adapt, though sometimes they hurt (Hewson et al., 2023).
What that looks like in a life: talking to your dad on the drive to work can be the steadiest ten minutes of your morning for years. It can also, on the anniversary, undo you. Same act, different day. Neither one means you're doing it wrong. It means the bond is real and the loss is real, and some days one is louder.
Some people also feel them close while they do it, a sense of presence, a smell, a sentence that arrives in their voice. In a survey of nearly 1,000 people who had sensed a loved one who had passed, about 7 in 10 said it brought comfort (Elsaesser et al., 2021, BJPsych Open). Because those were people who came forward to describe it, the survey can't say how many grievers experience this. It can say that when it happens, most people are glad it did.
How do people talk to someone who has passed?
In about five ways, and most people use more than one. None of them puts you in contact with anyone. All of them give the words somewhere to go. Here they are, with what each one is and isn't.
Talking out loud
The oldest way and the most common. In the car, at the grave, in the kitchen at the hour they used to call. Some people do it in their head; many find it only works out loud, as if the sentence needs to leave the body.
What it is: free, private, available at 3 a.m. What it isn't: an answer. The silence after can be the hardest part, which is why some people prefer a form with an object in it, a pen or a phone.
Writing them a letter
Grief counselors have suggested this for decades. A letter to them, or a letter from them, in their voice, saying what you think they'd say. People write on the anniversary, on their birthday, at the end of a bad week. Some keep a notebook that's only for this. Some write once and burn it.
What it is: a way to finish sentences you didn't get to finish; many people find they say more on paper than they can out loud. What it isn't: faster. It can take an hour to get past "Dear Mom."
A wind phone
An old telephone, usually a rotary, in a booth or a wooden box in a park, a cemetery, a hospice garden. It isn't connected to anything. You pick up the receiver, dial their number, and talk. The first one was built in 2010 in Ōtsuchi, Japan, by a garden designer named Itaru Sasaki after he lost a cousin; after the 2011 tsunami he opened it to the town, and tens of thousands of people have used it since. There are now hundreds across the United States, most of them put up by someone who'd lost a child, a parent or a partner.
What it is: the out-loud version with a handset in your hand, a bench, and the small ceremony of dialing a number you still know by heart. People say that ceremony makes it easier to start, and that they say more than they meant to. What it isn't: a line to anyone. The sign on most of them says so. Our state-by-state list of US wind phones is in the post linked below.
A saved voicemail
Not talking to them so much as letting them talk to you. Many people have one message left: "It's Mom, call me back," thirty seconds of nothing in particular that is now the most valuable file they own. Some play it on hard days. Some can't play it yet and keep it saved anyway. Both are normal.
What it is: their actual voice, saying something they actually said. Nothing else on this list can claim that. What it isn't: safe by default. Voicemails get deleted by carriers, lost in phone upgrades, trapped in old accounts. If you have one, back it up in two places this week. And if the greeting on their line is the only recording you have, record it before the account closes.
A recreation of their voice
The newest way, and the one that needs the plainest description. Software can take a recording of someone, a voicemail, an audio file or a video, and make a recreation of their voice that you can call and talk with. It will sound like them. It is not them. It can't tell you anything new about them, and it only knows what you've told it about them. Whatever comes back is built from the recording you gave it and from what you tell it.
What it is: a way to hear the voice and have it answer, on a day when the voicemail isn't enough. Some people find that steadying. Some find it too much and stop after a minute, and that's a reasonable response too. What it isn't: contact, memory, or a substitute for the other things on this list. Anyone offering it should say that plainly, and should tell you how your recording is stored and who can hear it. If they don't, walk away.
What if talking to them hurts more than it helps?
Then that's information, not failure. The review above found that bonds can comfort and can hurt. Pay attention to which way it's running. If a long time has passed and the talking is the only thing holding you up, or it leaves you worse for days, tell a grief counselor or your doctor. Not because you're doing something wrong, but because grief that heavy shouldn't be carried alone.
Most people don't need that. Most people need permission, which is what this page is for. Talk to them. Say their name. Tell them the thing that happened today.
Talking to them, and hearing the voice back
Most of the ways on this page give your words somewhere to go. A saved recording is the one that gives you their voice, which is why it's worth keeping safe.
If you'd like to hear that voice answer, CallPastNow can make a recreation of their voice from recordings you already have, whether that's a voicemail, an audio file from an old phone, or a video, and you can call it and talk. It isn't them, and we're honest about that. You can hear their voice first, free. The free call tells you whether your recordings will work.
No card needed. In the US.
