Here’s a memory of when I was about ten years old going to the mountains to ski with my dad. To this day this is one of the happiest memories I have from when I was little.

Ride like the wind by Christoper Cross is on. I jealous the wind roaring thorugh the speakers. It is cold outside, some snowflakes fall. My dad is next to me. “Are you ready there?” He asks excitedly. I laugh, I say “YES” P. But he’s not satisfied with it, he wants me to more ready. “Sorry what was that? I say, ARE YOU READY?” I was as ready as a 10 years old would be. “YES YES YES!!”

And he turns the music up. Louder. And he stepped on the gas. We are in a spaceship, in a jet, in a racing car, going one hundred kilometres per hour. It’s only me and my dad, lost in space and time, laughing. He makes wind noises, and I go “woooossssshhhhhhhh” and scream when a car comes in the other lane.

But dad knows what he’s doing. Arms and legs outstretched, he’s a pilot, he wants to ride like the wind, faster than the wind. He wants to cross the border of Mexico, like Cross sings. And he wants to take me with him in this adventure.

I don’t want the song to ever ever end. At home it’s all fighting and screaming, my parents never ever get along. Here there’s peace, in this car which is going to the white mountains. Here my dad laughs and cannot stop, he looks at me and tells me he loves me. He touches my hand and say that we will make it to that border, we will cross the line.

At the time I did not understand what he meant by it then, but now I know. He meant that at some point we would reach happiness, and peace, and we would laugh every day and there will be only hugs and joy.

I just had to hold on tight until we crossed that border.

So we rode like the wind in those mountain roads, escaping home for a bit. That was enough for me. In that moment I saw my dad for how he really was. Not the grumpy, angry, worried man who shut himself up and wouldn’t talk about his feelings. I saw the happy, dreaming, funny man who just wanted to be a pilot and race with me till the end. And that’s how he was, really. A grown up child. He was like me.

A traffic light. We stop still. “You know, there are no traffic light on a racing tracks. You don’t have to stop. You cam just go go go until you are satisfied. But in life, there are some traffic lights. We need to stop and ponder and think about our next moves before going on. And that’s fine, because those choices will bring us to the finish line”.

The song is fading. “Dad, are you making the right choices?” He sights, looks at the road. Then he smiles, and looking at me with those big, light blue eyes, he asks “are you happy? Even just now, are you?” And I nod. “Well then, I know I am making the right choice when you are happy. And you are, so right now, I am. But, whenever you will not be, just tell me, and I will work on the best choice I can take to make you smile again.”