"Baba, look here."
Click. The flash went off, a little too bright. Before I could even fix my face, the photo was already sliding out of the camera. My daughter had taken a picture of me with the camera she loves so much. "Don't waste it on me," I grumbled, not really meaning it. I was sitting on the sofa, playing on my phone. I didn't expect her to catch me like that. In the photo, I am looking at her through the lens. She seems so grown up. Somehow she is already twenty-seven, but I still see a child. In my heart she will always be my little one.
I watched her fiddle with the camera, and my mind drifted back twelve years. When I gave her her first smartphone, she turned it over in her hands the same way, eyes bright, studying every part of it.
Then, when she was in Year 9, my business ran into trouble. I was at my wits' end every day. And right then, my ex-wife decided to take her overseas. I had just taken over a new company and was working out how to turn things around. Late at night, I would look around the empty house and think: from now on, I'll only see her a few times a year. But as a father, I couldn't stop her from seeing the world and living a bigger life. I also worried that if my business failed, I would drag her down with me. So the two of them got on a plane to Australia, and I stayed behind and kept working.
A few years went by. My business picked up, and my daughter started university. Just before the pandemic, she came home for the holidays, and we drove back to my hometown to visit her grandmother and my brothers and sisters. On the road we talked about everything: her childhood, her life now, gossip about people we knew. It felt easy. In my hometown she was a little out of place, but she was warm and cheerful with everyone. She had hardly met my side of the family growing up, so of course she didn't know them well. But she came back with me, and that was enough to make me happy.
One night I carefully asked what she thought of my new family. I expected anger. Or tears, like every other time I had brought it up. But this time her answer surprised me. "I want my dad to be happy," she said. "It's just hard for me to get along with them the way you'd like." Hearing that, something in me let go. Watching her say it with a crack in her voice, I suddenly felt my girl had grown up. After that night, we quietly grew a little closer.
From then on, she came back every year she could. My business was stable, and I always set aside time to travel with her and visit her grandmother. Each time, I could see how she had changed. On our first trip, we were almost like strangers. We didn't know each other's body clocks. I was used to getting up early and taking my medication by half past seven. She slept in until nine or ten. At first I wanted her up earlier, but we only had a few days a year, and I didn't want to upset her. Slowly we found a balance. I got up early, ate, took my pills, went for a walk, did some work. When she woke up, we did something together and had lunch. It worked.
My heart was never strong. If I got too tired, I felt unwell, so I could only do easy things with her. When she wanted to do something exciting or exhausting, I waited on the side and watched. One winter she wanted me to take her skiing. Of course I couldn't ski with her. I watched from the big windows of the restaurant. She had only just learned to snowboard and fell a lot. Every time that yellow jacket suddenly went down on the slope, my heart jumped into my throat. But whenever she came in to rest, she just smiled. "I'm fine, don't worry. The snow is soft, it doesn't hurt."
Another time, she said she hadn't had photos taken in years and booked a photographer. She asked me to come along. She wore a white dress and had her hair braided. I stood back and watched the photographer shoot her, and it was like watching her on her wedding day. I took a few photos on my phone. Looking at her, I wanted to cry. She was still a child to me, but in that moment I could see her as a bride.
In the summer of 2025, the same summer she took my photo, she told me she was seeing someone. He was the first boy she had ever brought to meet me. The two of them picked me up at the airport after a work trip. He was so nervous, and I sized him up the whole drive. As her father, I still had my questions. After a few days, he seemed reliable: humble, steady, not a smooth talker. I told my daughter to take it seriously and not mess him around. She laughed and said I was getting way ahead of myself. I said, "Baba just doesn't want you to get hurt. But seeing you bring someone home, I can finally relax."
(Maybe that was why. After that, there was nothing left keeping me in this world.)
At the end of August, she messaged to ask how I was. In the last few years I no longer needed to run the company myself. Business wasn't great, and I just wanted to look after my health and enjoy retirement. "Same old," I wrote back. "What about you? Busy? How's your boyfriend?" We chatted for a bit. It was late on her side, so I told her to go to bed. I never thought that goodnight would be goodbye.
