My father died in August of 2012 from myelodysplastic syndromes that developed into leukemia.

After the diagnosis in 2011, he kept telling my stepmother and me that he had an important unfinished business. It was an interview he had conducted decades ago. He wanted the world to know some important news revealed in the interview.

Really? He didn’t do anything about it for all these years. We weren’t very sympathetic to his pleas but he persisted.

Finally I gave in, “Why don’t you show it to us and tell us what we should do with it?”

He eagerly brought out a pile of yellowing papers. We read the interview transcript together and listened to him explaining its significance. In the end, we agreed to take the document to the person whom he thought would value it.

Then, he said, ”Now that I have told you about the story, it doesn’t seem as urgent or important anymore. I wonder if I was wrong about it all along.” After that, he never talked about this unfinished business as if talking about it helped him let it go.

My stepmother and I never delivered the document after his death. In fact, we never talked about the promise.

My father had many wishes that were dismissed by us as his delusions. For example, he wanted his journals since 1945 to be published by a famous publisher. He even typed up excerpts from the years I was growing up.

I have read parts of my father’s journals, including a shared notebook while my parents were dating. I was fascinated by his private thoughts and actions. I also got to learn his side of stories of many incidents that involved me.

My father wanted to become a novelist, and his talents are evident in the detailed accounts of his life. Unfortunately he never succeeded as a novelist perhaps because—according to my late mother—he lacked the courage to expose himself to the public. He was always calm, listened to others, and worked hard to lift up others’ voices. He rarely shared his own stories and desires unless he was drunk—a Japanese cultural practice. I wonder if he was unloading his secrets on these pages. Or did he make these entries day after day hoping that someone—his families, friends and even strangers—would eventually want to read them?

Perhaps my father’s true unfinished business is to share his authentic stories with the world.

I wonder if I should fulfill his dream. There is only one problem. Some stories are rather embarrassing to his family. I don’t know if I have the courage to expose his life that he could not reveal on his own.