ISLIP, NY — Another victim of the opioid epidemic has been honored at Islip's Serenity Garden wind phone, a Japanese tradition that offers a way for people to connect with loved ones they've lost.

The person remembered is Brandon Soto, a Keyport, New Jersey man who died of fentanyl poisoning on April 30, 2024.

After he died, his aunt, Melanie Poletski of Lake Grove, and his grandmother, Bernadette Petrella of Ronkonkoma, decided to plant a tree in his memory at the Memorial Serenity Garden at the Suffolk County Environmental Center at the Scully Estate.

On August 25, they planted a bald cypress tree and surrounded it with painted seashells.

Soto's mother, Blaisa Quattlebaum, watched via Facetime and his girlfriend, Maryellen Hemmings, came from New Jersey for the planting.

Wind phones originated in Japan in 2010 when Itaru Sasaki was grieving a cousin who died of cancer. Sasaki found an old-fashioned phone booth, installed an old rotary phone and put it in his garden. It was there he felt connected to his cousin and found comfort while grieving. He named it, Kaze No Denwa, aka he "Telephone of the Wind."

While wind phones serve to help people connect with anyone they've lost, Islip's wind phone was installed by Gabriel’s Giving Tree, an organization that helps local families with the costs of burying loved ones who died from drug overdoses.

The memorial park is also home to hundreds of purple rocks created by The Purple Rock Project, an organization dedicated to remembering those lost to the opioid crisis founded by Carole Trottere, who lost her son Alex to fentanyl in 2018.

Trottere's organization supplies purple-painted rocks that people can inscribe with the names of loved ones they've lost to overdoses. The rocks are then exhibited in the Serenity Garden and other locations as a reminder of the Long Islanders who've died from an overdose.

Soto's memorial tree was planted just in time for a series of events hosted by the Town of Islip to recognize Recovery Awareness Month

Over one million people have died since 1999 from drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2023, there were an estimated 366 fatal fentanyl overdoses in Suffolk, down 8.2% from 399 confirmed deaths in 2022.

Anyone in need of a scholarship to help bury a loved one may contact Gabriel’s Giving Tree at gabriel.givingtree@gmail.com. Donated are welcome and are tax deductible as allowable by law.

(source)