I came across a fascinating tale a while back about a garden designer who set up a disconnected telephone booth in a public field in Japan, where people can “call” people who have died, and say whatever they want. Entitled “Kaze no Denwa”, or the Phone of the Wind, the artist, Itaru Sasaki, created this installment shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, to honor his cousin, who perished.

I first heard about this phone booth in an episode of the podcast This American Life entitled “One Last Thing Before I Go“, which talks about people who are making one last effort to communicate with their loved ones. It was almost two years ago that the episode aired, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what is said, and left unsaid, between loved ones.

My mother will be turning 79 on March 12, 2020. She has been spending the better part of the last few months organizing and preparing her final wishes: funeral, cemetery plot, financial planning, etc. She isn’t ill, so don’t get sad. In fact, it has only been through my persistent, yet gentle, insistence for the past two years that she is finally (hallelujah!) getting her affairs in order.

I’m sure the subject weighs heavy on her. After all, what is the fun in preparing for your death. But, until we began this process, I had no idea just how much is involved. I know many friends whose loved ones did not make these preparations in advance, and the torture they went through to sort it all out after their death.

But it is not the knowledge of death that spurs me to write this. It is a recurring theme that I have felt about how little we express to others about ourselves: our hopes, fears, wishes. Sure, we vague-book, and occasionally rant on social platforms. But how many people can you honestly say truly knows everything about you? Would it be safe to say that there is actually no one?

In my case, that is true.

I am definitely a sharer. Sometimes an over-sharer. But in retrospect, my sharing is of the mundane, the superficial. I can maybe think of one person with whom I have shared some of the feelings and thoughts I have in my head. But even that person doesn’t know everything.

So, would it be safe to say that, if we don’t share ourselves with others, that indeed we truly don’t know anyone with any degree of depth? Why do we wait until the other person is gone and can only be reached by a non-working telephone to share our innermost thoughts, our feelings, our wishes and regrets?

American culture dictates that we walk in silos, that we share only when necessary, and only as little as is needed to communicate our intent. And I think that’s crap, and only isolates us as humans.

Obviously I am not the only one who struggles with this dichotomy. There was a book released in September 2019 called “Before The Coffee Gets Cold” and a film that was just released in January 2020 called “Voices in the Wind” about this theme.

I don’t want to have any regrets at the end of this journey: no bucket list items left unchecked. But, more importantly, nothing left unsaid. So, I’m gonna start sharing, people. You have been warned.

Which leads to to the questions: is there someone you share your inner-most thoughts and feelings with? Do your loved ones know exactly how you feel?