In Japanese, we have two words. Honne. What you really feel. Tatemae. The face you show everyone else. Most Japanese people have mastered tatemae by about age twelve. My cousin Daichi married a woman from Kansas named Kelsey. Kelsey does not have a tatemae. She only has honne. The first time she met Daichi's parents, on a train platform in Tokyo, she burst into tears. Happy tears. "I'm just so happy to meet you!" My aunt bowed six times. She did not know what else to do. At New Year's, Kelsey tasted my aunt's soup and said, "This is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth." Then she cried. My uncle dropped his chopsticks. He is a man who has said maybe five emotional sentences in seventy years. She told a convenience store clerk, "You have the kindest eyes I've ever seen." The clerk had to sit down. She cried at a baby elephant at the zoo. She sings in the car. Loudly. With the windows down. For a while, my aunt went around apologizing to the neighbors for her. Every phone call with my aunt, Kelsey ends the same way: "Okay! Love you!" And for three years, my aunt answered the same way: "Yes. Thank you very much." Then, last spring, my uncle needed heart surgery. He was 72. The night before, the whole family sat around his hospital bed. Nobody said they were scared. In Japan, you don't. Everybody said, "It'll be fine." "Don't worry." "Easy operation." My uncle lay there looking at the ceiling. Alone with it. Then Kelsey walked in. She pulled a chair right up to the bed. She took his hand in both of hers. And she said, in front of everyone: "I'm scared. I don't want to lose you. You're the only dad I have over here. I love you." The room went completely silent. My uncle had never cried in front of anyone. Not at his own father's funeral. He cried. Then my aunt took his other hand and said it. Then Daichi said it. Then my aunt's brother. Then me. In seventy years, nobody in that family had ever said "I love you" out loud. That night, it was said eleven times. The surgery went perfectly. The next time Kelsey called, she ended the call the way she always did. "Okay! Love you!" And my aunt said, in Japanese, very quietly: "Me too." Kelsey screamed so loud my aunt dropped the phone. On the day my uncle came home from the hospital, he looked at his son and said the word most Japanese men have only ever heard in TV dramas. "Aishiteru." Daichi said, "Who are you?" Later, I asked Kelsey if she was ever embarrassed. Crying in public. Telling strangers about their eyes. Saying it every single time. She looked at me like I had asked something very strange. "Honey. If you love somebody, it's not a secret. So don't keep it like one." So if anyone has ever told you that you're too much, that you cry too easily, laugh too loud, love too openly, please don't fix it. Somewhere, there's a family that needs exactly that.