The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

“The Body” from Different Seasons by Stephen King

If this is the first time you have read this passage, or even if it is not, go back and read it again before you hear my thoughts.

I have often said that time is the most precious gift we can give because this is what I have believed. I still do believe shared time is a valuable gift — whether the time is shared with someone or on behalf of someone. Having read this passage many times over the past almost six months and having experienced some of the picture they paint in my mind and heart, I wonder if  these ‘things’, these landmarks to the treasure kept in our secret heart, are more even precious than time. The thing is, time — unhurried time — is fundamental to sharing these things. When shared with the right person, enveloped in the presence of deep trust, even finding the right words for the most tender thoughts is not absolutely necessary because they see and hear beyond the words to the real essence.

Sometimes these most important things are shared without any words at all but through the eyes and through touch. Just one of the great beauties of eyes is how directly and how poignantly they can express our very deepest thoughts and feelings to another’s eyes in the span of a moment. Eyes locked open even the deepest treasures. Beautiful even if surprising at times.

A gift is not a gift until it is given and received. Treasure is not really treasure as long as it stays hidden, only when shared.