I had not seen my father in over 20 years. He left the country to return to England when I was ten, some two years after separating from my mother. He would write occasionally, but there were lapses that would often last for years without a single word being exchanged. Put it this way, in the last two decades, we had spoken four maybe five times.
To be honest, I never had any inclination to see my father, either. But seeing that I was going on my first trip to Europe as an adult, somehow it just seemed like the right thing to do. So I emailed him and asked him if he would like to meet in person. He jumped at the chance and we started speaking regularly on the phone to iron out any wrinkles in the plan. Actually, we spoke more in the week leading up to this than we had in the last twenty years. But it was all very proper, much like how we arrange to meet any business appointment when we travel. To me (at least at the time I was organizing it) he was simply another appointment, and that’s not meant to sound cold.
In hindsight, I was ambivalent only because I didn't marinate myself in the emotion. Maybe it was a natural mechanism I employed so as not to get analysis paralysis.
We agreed to meet in Munich. Everything was set and I was surprisingly very calm. But the night before I was meant to meet him at the airport, I started to realize the gravity of the situation I had put myself in. What the hell was I thinking? Seriously? There I was in a foreign hotel room, ten thousand miles away from a friendly face and a familiar voice, and about to meet my father again after twenty years. Alone. No back up, no safety net. Nothing. To think that this was my idea. It’s true what they say: your feet do actually really get cold when you want to back out of something. I felt it.
I needed the upper hand, something to tip the psychological balance in my favor. This was his turf after all. The last time he saw me I was ten years old for crying out loud; I would sit next to him in the car and change the gears for him from the passenger seat. I always remembered him as a very good driver, and one that understood and appreciated a well built car.
He taught me how to drive when I was eight and would let me drive him out of the village every morning on the way to school in his 1978 Toyota Corona. I remember bumping it once and my brothers laughing their heads off, but instead of punishing me, he made get right back in and drive him to the gate. My fondest memories of my father centered around that car, so if there ever was a common interest, this was it.
I fired off an email and BMW coughed up a stunning 735i finished in mint green paint and handsomely trimmed in supple beige leather. It was their flagship model fitted with all the goodies you’d expect from one of the world’s most prestigious brands. Laying eyes on it for the first time drove every last butterfly out of my stomach. This was just the ticket. After all, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.
Now that I had the car, I fired off a final email to my dad and offered to pick him up from the airport. I planned everything in detail the sleepless night before. I went over everything in my head a thousand times and even bothered to do a reconnaissance of the area so that everything would fall neatly into place. I went to the airport four hours early so I could check what gate he would come out of, what baggage carousel, if any, would he be collecting his things from, where he would likely exit, where I should park, how much it would cost, and most importantly, how I would drive out of the airport and not look like that nervous 10 year old that would drive him to the gate every morning.
Twenty years had come down to this moment and I couldn't afford for anything to go wrong. I mean, it's the kind of stuff that Hallmark cards draws a living from, so I may as well try and make it perfect.
After combing through every last detail, I still ended up with two hours to kill. I had a snapshot of my Seven series basking out there in the gentle autumn sun, tanning itself, just itching to go out for a drive. So I hopped in and decided to clear my mind.
I found a few country back roads and followed a homesick Gti Golf around for a few miles and started to have some fun. It didn’t take long to get deeply involved in the drive, the car, the roads and the scenery, that I realized that I had completely lost track of the time. In fact, when I glanced at my driving interface, I noticed an hour and a half had passed since I last bothered to care about time.
“My Dad!”
There's half an hour to go before he touches down, but my navigational system tells me that I've wandered about 100 kms away from the airport. That would mean I’d have to average about 200km/h! Good thing it’s Germany and the Autobahn was nearby. Doable, sure, but now I'm seriously busting to take a leak. As in, legs crossed busting. But there’s no time to stop.
By the time I reached the airport there were tears of frustration from holding it in, which of course put all my carefully laid plans down the toilet. Literally. I parked right outside the electric doors of the terminal, smack bang in front of a fire hydrant and partially up the curb and ran for dear life into the terminal to find a bathroom.
I eventually found a bathroom downstairs. Problem was, I couldn't get back up without walking the entire circumference of the terminal as all escalators going up were on the other side. Screw it. I counter flowed up a south bound escalator with one hand fully extended in front of me, my head buried down, and the other hand behind me, guiding me like a fin. If you've ever seen a Filipino walk in front of the movie screen in the cinema without trying to be intrusive, you would know what I'm talking about.
First things first. I run out of the terminal to make sure that the car had not been towed. Much to my relief, it was still there and there were no crumpled traffic tickets stuffed under the windscreen wipers. I was literally panting; I leaned forward and supported myself by placing my hands just above my knees and let out a long, deep breath and a massive sigh of relief.
When I straightened out, I turned around and headed back into the terminal to look for my dad without so much as looking where I was going and accidentally bumped into this very imposing figure who had just stepped out of the electric doors. We were both startled, and both took a half step back and apologized purely from instinct. We locked gazes. And just like that, one second of eye contact wiped away twenty years. He dropped his bag, I opened up my arms, smiled and slowly said, “Hi Dad.”
We embraced each other for what felt like an eternity, yet in reality it wouldn’t have been any longer than half a minute. We were standing right in the doorway, oblivious to the chaos we were causing; the electric doors opening and closing on us, while a line of annoyed travelers started to steadily build up behind my father.
Not a lot was said. We just embraced. When we finally released each other from the suffocating grip, I looked into my father’s swollen, glassy eyes and said, “I hope I have hugged the right man.” He laughed, which lightened the mood considerably, then looked over my shoulder and said, “What a beautiful car.”
