Learning Kaneko-san

I'm often not sure of an appropriate course of light conversation in my own culture and language, so far be it for me to broach certain areas of life when speaking with an older Japanese gentlemen, such as Kaneko-san.  About him I have learned that he worked in fire insurance, that he travelled to Spain and Germany, that he is from Kyoto and has lived in at least Himeji and the Kansai area.  Last week when I gave him chocolates from Hokkaido, he disclosed to me that he had visited Sapporo with his wife.  Ah, a wife.  One unasked question, answered.  And this week, after several lessons in which family is mentioned, he finally disclosed a little more.  He is very uncertain of his English, so in preparation he has lined the inside cover of his dictionary and grammar book with phrases both about himself and that could be useful in teaching.  He opened the flap.  Upside down, several entries beyond, "Do you have any questions?"  I saw the source of his arduous word-for-word copying.  I watched his pencil disclose, like a ouija board, answers to questions that I had never had the courage to impose.   "There are three people in my family  My wife is homemaker  My daughter works as a pharmacist in a hospital, I worked in a insurance company before"

In these four semi-punctuated statements is a whole life.  Long-term relationships with two people, his family (and not the one that raised him, which he did not mention); a change from one generation to another between these women, "homemaker" to "pharmacist in a hospital;" a change in the course of life, "before."

Something more personal even than the information, explicit or implied, is his handwriting.  I wish I could share it, but perhaps the long waiting before this disclosure has embedded in me a trust that I cannot break, even if it were ok with him, even though it is information that would commonly be shared in a first meeting.  The handwriting is something more.  The sound of a voice, the speed of a gesture, frozen on the page.

What and how much of it do I have to have before I can say that I know Kaneko-san?