I received a message from my father, saying that he already hit the road. He drove 750 kilometers all alone, without feeling the least of tired and he already arrived at Huangguoshu waterfalls.

I asked him to be careful, because the virus has not ended yet. He told me that he would eat and sleep at his car, and stop at a hotel to tidy up every three days. He had everything planned and this time he would visit Guiyang, Jiaxi and Zejiang.

He is 72 years old and after all these years, there is still himself and his road trip. Nothing can stop a roaming spirit, I guess, the age or the virus.

Honestly, he is always a kind of stranger to me. For most of time, he was simply not there. I know very little about him but I do remember he travelled a lot though.

Part of me does want to be a person like him, you know, always carefree, worry-free and responsibility-free, just pack up and out to see the world.

We haven’t met yet, just exchanged a few words occasionally. Right now, perhaps it’s best to keep that way. They call it a closure, you know, to forgive, to really forget those hurts, to make peace with the broken family you came from and to finally make peace with yourself.

I’m not sure if I had that closure. For all those years, I told myself that I didn’t care. You know, if you pretended hard enough, you could not only fool the others but also fool yourself, and in the end you simply don’t know what the truth is.  

So, right now it’s better to keep that way. To be honest, I felt kind of relieved about his leaving, just like so many times when it happened in my childhood. His leaving signified less fights, fewer arguments, and less stressed at home. Of course not this time, this time it just means a delay of our reunion.

We are so not ready to go back to the normal father-and-daughter thing. Or is there such thing ever between us? I even didn’t tell him that I got cancer. I assumed that it was just too much for him to play this part and I, also, don’t know how to react to his whatever reaction. It’s too complicate.