Please join us TO honor
the memory of

John Trahar

John’s Wind phone

If you were at John’s memorial in January, you may have come across a disconnected pay phone… a “wind phone” that connects to nothing physical, but hopefully to the spiritual.

A wind phone (kaze no denwa in Japanese) is a disconnected telephone that people use to “call” loved ones who have died. You pick up the receiver, dial, and speak, and the idea is that the wind carries your words to them. The concept started in Japan, when a heartbroken landscape designer placed a disconnected phone booth in one of his gardens, so he could speak to his cousin who had died.

My Wind Phone is a global directory and resource dedicated to helping people find, create, and share wind phones in communities around the world.

Wind Phone Map Locator

Jamie and Cal (and friends and family) want to memorialize John in a unique and enduring way with a wind phone that will live outside the Flynn-Trahar Zilker home and be accessible to anyone as a freestanding piece of art. As you can see from the wind phone map, there are two wind phones currently in Austin, both located in conjunction with hospice environments.

We would like to pull the wind phone away from institutional spaces, as kind as they are, and into a more intimate setting in nature. John loved his home, his neighborhood and being outside - this is where his direct line should live.

To create this unique wind phone installation, with the help of Adam and Marty Butler, Jamie has commissioned the extremely talented Austin artist Adam Young to design and build this wind phone structure. Adam is a self taught artist based in Austin who is both a fine artist and a wood worker and he brings his soulful folk sensibility to every piece he creates. John loved this kind of art and this is our personal and loving way of making this wind phone in his image.

Jamie will be funding this art but would like to invite your participation to bring it to life. We will be selling 24 individual planks constructing the phone, at a cost of $300 each. Like memorial bricks, you will be able to put someone’s initials or a date on the plank you own, thus making your loved one a part of this phone as well.If you do not wish to own a plank, but to donate to the project, you are welcome as well, and of course, no donation is necessary to be involved.

Our sincere hope is that we can share the magic of a wind phone for anyone who feels called to engage and that we can spark awareness of the practice to inspire others to make their own wind phones in whatever way speaks to them… and to those who have left us.

Please join us by claiming your plank via Venmo:

@trahar-wind-phone

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ALL About JOHN

John Joseph Trahar, left his earthly body on November 6, 2025, sailing away on a whisper boat under a super moon after a long illness and a short but peaceful and dignified stay at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House. His wife, Jamie Flynn, was with him as he went on his way.

John, born to Margaret Fox Trahar and Jonathan Carl Trahar on April 5, 1967, in Sydney Australia, began his life with a memorable journey. In October 1970, he and his family embarked on an ocean liner to the United States, a voyage famously interrupted when the ship caught fire, resulting in the family being flown from Fiji to Niagara Falls. John often joked that his parents used this dramatic event as a handy excuse for why his toys never made it to the US. His initial home in America was Queens, NY, a move he often puzzled over, wondering why they left the gorgeous Sydney suburb of Mossman for…Queens. The family eventually settled in Rye, NY, in 1974.

John was the "Irish twin" to his brother Mike Trahar, and their relationship was a long series of battles and arguments, always interspersed with bouts of "I love you, man." Mike was a constant presence during John's final battle, a testament to their enduring bond. He also shared a loving bond with his sister, Susanne Mauney, whom her brothers lovingly referred to as the "best of all of us”. John maintained deep, lifelong friendships with Jeff Egan, Don Whamond, and Jim Noone. While the details of their shared youthful shenanigans are best left unprinted, it is known that they happened and everyone survived.

These three men provided immense comfort to John, Jamie, and Mike during his illness and served as excellent "faux uncles" to John’s and Jamie’s son, Calum, along with local uncles Adam Butler and Brian Gourley and actual uncles Blake Flynn, Mike Trahar and Josh Mauney. Cal’s many Aunts (you know who you are), both real and faux have also been tremendous sources of caring and support.

A man of diverse passions, John was a lifelong sports enthusiast, particularly loving baseball, football and soccer. Though he was small for his age as a kid, he also became a lifelong fast runner because his "mouth was always 6’2”." John’s deep love for water led him to become a strong swimmer, sailor, and dabbling scuba diver—a passion that prompted his family to suspect he may have been a benevolent pirate in a past life. He also had a quiet love for reading, caught frequently as a young boy with comic books and flashlight under the tent of covers. John graduated from Rye High School and he furthered his education at Roanoke College in Virginia, graduating in 1989 with a BA in Communications.

Before beginning his career in advertising, John waited tables in Richmond, VA, saving up to attend Portfolio School in Atlanta. There, he learned the skills to become an art director and forged lifelong friendships, including Stephen Powell, Matt Rollins, and Bill Bayne. His professional life saw him apply his creative talents at notable agencies such as O&M/NYC, GSD&M, and ultimately Greatest Common Factory - the agency he founded in 2011. John was a creative leader, mentor and hands-on practitioner who was obsessed with “making things better”. This was not just his agency tagline; it was his driving mantra, and spilled into all areas of his life.

Nothing had a bigger impact on John’s life than travel. He was endlessly curious about other countries, cultures, and cuisines, exploring destinations like the North Shore of Kauai, Big Bend, London, Spain, Turkey, the Greek Isles, the Galapagos, South America, Italy and of course, Australia. An epic American road trip made a big impact as well. Many of these adventures were taken with Adam Butler and Brian Gourley in their roaring twenties. John shared the love of travel with Jamie and Calum, though he had to learn to enjoy a luxury hotel for their sake. He was joyfully adventurous and loved being in nature, especially in the water, though he never managed to convince his wife, Jamie, that joining him in a ridiculously cold ocean, spring, lake, or pool was "refreshing." These travels reconnected John to himself and it’s where the best version of John could be seen.

John married Jamie Flynn in 2006 on a gorgeous night in Austin Texas at the Laguna Gloria Art Museum. The wedding was populated with beloved friends and family from Los Angeles and New York as well as Austin locals. (To this day, the curfew and sound rules at the event locale remain stricter due to this epic night.) And the vows taken that day were lived in the most profound ways. John and Jamie built a home together in Austin with the architectural genius of Jamie’s father Mike. They welcomed Calum Flynn Trahar as their first and only child in 2009. John and Jamie liked to point out that in Cal’s case, two wrongs do indeed make right. John deeply loved his family, and nothing made him happier than his son, - Cal was John’s best friend and favorite human from Cal’s first breath to John’s last.

John loved reading history, introducing all friends and family to the biographies of Winston Churchill and the books of Patrick O’Brien, and urging everyone he met to read Sapiens and Life of Pi. John and Jamie also shared an interest in Stoic philosophy and he often sought spiritual guidance in the words of Richard Rohr. They bonded over a shared addiction to almost any British murder show or detective story, requiring multiple streaming channels, cups of tea, and shortbread biscuits while watching. A man of varied tastes and a great love for laughter, he often quoted the "First rule of comedy - be funny," and would shamelessly defend his all-time favorite movie, Working Girl (a love Jamie shared, in return for her getting him hooked on Moonstruck).

John lived by the guiding principles of "trying and caring," believing that if one can accomplish just those two things, life will generally be okay, and one will meet genuinely good people. In spite of his recent terrible misfortune, this was a belief he held to the end and to which Jamie still firmly adheres. John practiced radical honesty, which those who met him soon discovered whether they were ready or not. Over time he learned to deliver this gift wrapped with more love and tenderness. It all came from a place of caring deeply, which any friend of John’s knew to their core.

John is survived by many who will miss him dearly: his beloved wife, Jamie Flynn: his son Calum Flynn Trahar: his siblings Mike Trahar and Susanne Mauney: Jamie’s parents Pat and Mike Flynn: his in-laws Blake and Lara Flynn, and Joshua Mauney. He is also survived by his extended family, including his nieces and nephews, Noah Trahar, Emma Trahar, Ryan Trahar, Georgia Mauney, Maggie Mauney, Cameron Flynn, and Connor Flynn, as well as by his uncle and aunt, Peter and Peta Trahar.