Old letters - 2
A few weathered scraps of paper with faded ink - I didn't expect them to reveal so much. I found out how my parents' marriage was arranged, what my grandfather thought of the prospective bride and her family (not fair / not dark and well-mannered, very respectable family with an eminent scholar as a patriarch but not well-to-do). I found out more fleshed out versions of family secrets or uncomfortable topics that I'd had the faintest inklings of from overhearing my parents' conversations or my mother and aunt's late night gossip when they thought I was fast asleep on an adjoining bed. What I found in those letters , about family connections, was also humbling; it forced me to re-examine some strong opinions and assumptions. You know how when you look at trees, they seem to each be standing on their own little piece of ground, unconnected. Growing up, that's how I saw our extended family (outside my parents' siblings) - aunts or uncles who would turn up sud...