September, a day off, four of us, HuangHe, Steve, Ivy, nobody's idea of a scheduled thing. Just a mountain we knew was there and a morning with nowhere else to be. I didn't tell anyone I was timing myself.

九月，一個休息日，我們四個人——HuangHe、Steve、Ivy——沒有人計劃過這件事。只是一座我們知道在那裡的山，和一個沒有其他地方可去的早晨。我沒有告訴任何人我在計時。

Fifty-two minutes.

五十二分鐘。

I felt fine at the top. Not fine like survived it. Fine like I had more left. Heart rate steady, breathing even, legs that had done what I asked without negotiating. The view was identical, the flat Vietnamese plain stretching out forever, the statue, the sky doing what it does up there. Nothing about the mountain had changed.

到了山頂我感覺很好。不是那種撐過來的好。是還有餘力的好。心跳平穩，呼吸均勻，雙腿按照我的要求完成了任務，沒有任何討價還價。眼前的景色一模一樣——越南的平原無限延伸，佛像，天空在那個高度的樣子。山沒有任何改變。

Everything else had.

改變的是其他一切。

My father taught physical education at Chinese Culture University in Taipei. Kinesiology was his specialty. He trained basketball and baseball teams, accompanied athletes to the Olympics, spent his life in the precise and serious business of understanding what the human body could do. At my age he was in the best shape of his life. I knew this. I always knew this. And for years I told myself it didn't apply to me, that the stress was different, the work was different, that I had reasons he didn't have.

我父親在台北的中國文化大學教體育。運動學是他的專業。他訓練籃球和棒球隊，陪同運動員參加奧運會，一生都在從事理解人體能力這件精確而嚴肅的事業。在我這個年紀，他正處於體能的巔峰。我知道這一點。我一直都知道。但多年來我告訴自己這與我無關——壓力不同，工作不同，我有他沒有的理由。

Excuses are quieter than explanations but they weigh the same.

藉口比解釋更安靜，但重量是一樣的。

We argued about it, my father and I. He never quite understood the magnitude of what I was building, and I never quite had the words to explain it to him in a way that landed. Two people who loved each other, talking past each other about the thing that took up most of my life. I don't think we ever fully met in the middle. That is one of the sadnesses I carry.

我和父親為此爭論過。他從未真正理解我所建立的事業的規模，而我也從未找到能讓他理解的語言。兩個相愛的人，卻在占據我大部分生命的事情上彼此錯過。我不認為我們曾經真正在中間相遇過。這是我心中的悲傷之一。

We went to the buffet. I had a mango smoothie and watched the clouds move over Tây Ninh and thought about what he knew that I spent so long pretending not to. About the body as something you tend, not something that happens to you. About the fact that I am now the age he was when he was at his best, and I am only just beginning.

我們去吃了自助餐。我喝著芒果冰沙，看著雲朵在西寧上空移動，想著他知道的那些我長久以來假裝不知道的事。關於身體是需要照料的東西，而不是發生在你身上的事情。關於我現在正是他最巔峰時的年紀，而我才剛剛開始。

He spent his whole life trying to teach me something I wasn't ready to hear. I spent mine doing something he couldn't quite see. And somehow, standing at the top of a mountain in Vietnam six months after I nearly didn't make it up, I think we might have finally understood each other.

他用一生試圖教我一些我還沒準備好聆聽的東西。我用我的一生做著他看不太清楚的事情。而不知為何，站在越南一座山的頂上——六個月前我幾乎爬不上來的那座山——我想我們或許終於理解了彼此。

Just not while he was here to know it.

只是他已經不在了，無法知道這件事。