ghost letter: herstories

Did you shed tears of anger, when you married into this "prestigious" family, only to find out that your husband had already kept a mistress in the mansion, even before the wedding? A dumb  opera actress she was-- did you also find it absurd, like I do now, decades and decades after, even after the death of your husband, that a dumb woman could actually become an opera actress, that a husband could have a mistress even before getting married?

Oh Grandmother, do not be surprised. I know the histories-- or more precisely, the "herstories". You told Mother, and Mother told me. Such absurdities of the era should not pass on unnoticed. You were not fortunate enough to receive proper education. Oh Grandmother. Do not worry, I will write your stories.

Was it love at first sight when you encountered that gentleman from Shanghai? Did you feel the warm and fuzzy feeling taking over your body, as you finally fell in love for the first time of your life, after five years of a loveless marriage? Did you know that was love? Did you develop the yearning for the continental China, which you are presumably related to yet sounded absolutely foreign? Did you envision starting a new life there with him, in that vast continent, when he asked you to come with him?

Oh Grandmother, I believe you hesitated, you did. Was it the fear of the uncertainty, or was it the sense of familial responsibility that kept you home that very afternoon? Did you feel your heart wrenching when you were home, keeping yourself busy in the kitchen, knowing that he was waiting for you by the river-- where you met for the first time-- waiting for you to start a new life in China? Did you imagine the disappointed look on his face when the sun set, and he finally realized that you were not coming?

Did you shed tears of regret, when you saw your husband coming home that day with the same rough demeanor, asking what was for dinner, and then you knew what you had given up for?

Oh Grandmother, how history has cunning passages! Should you have gone that day, I would have never been born. Yet here I am, in an even more foreign continent, retelling your stories in a foreign language.

Oh Grandmother, here I am, telling your herstories.