minor characters

One of my favorite novels is Wide Sargasso Sea. It tells the story of Bertha Mason before she became Jane Eyre's crazy wife in the attic; it tells the story of Bertha before she became a minor character - an obstacle, really - in the story Jane and Rochester.

It has been fun to visit old friends in new places. Apart from the obvious perks of great companionship and local guides, I get to be a minor character in the ongoing stories of my friends, whose ongoing lives lend a depth and richness to these places that I'd hardly have discovered as a passing visitor.

But the most surprising of the stories of this past month has been that of my father. In Taiwan, I watched him interact with my grandfather, visited places and heard stories of his past. When news came of my great uncle's death, he broke the news to my grandfather and made plans to go to China to attend the funeral and tend to people and things. As a spectator, I thought about the dutiful eldest son he has always been, the kind of father he had and perhaps wanted, the kind of father he is and was and wasn't, the kind of children he wanted and the ones he got.

As the central figure in a story of war and immigration and poverty and family and life's triumph and strife, my father is a much different man than the one I had known as a minor character (and oftentimes, antagonist) in the story of my life. There are many people who I admire but lack the will to aspire to be; I never thought my dad would be one of them.