Riding My Bicycle to Find My Father

My father once worked in a heavy industrial factory.

It was an era when the air seemed filled with steam, heavy oil, and the smell of steel. The factory was constantly loud. Molten metal moved through the workshops, and danger and accidents always seemed close at hand.

Accidents were rarely officially reported.

People learned what had happened through rumours and through the factory’s occasional “safety exhibitions.” These exhibitions displayed photographs, models, and sometimes even disturbing traces and details from industrial accidents. They were intended to warn workers, but for me, they became some of the most frightening nightmares of my childhood.

“I heard that a load fell from the overhead crane in the workshop next door. The man underneath was killed instantly.”

“Someone fell into a ladle of molten steel. After burning for hours, there was almost nothing left.”

As a child, I did not understand technical words such as “overhead crane” or “steel ladle.” But I understood death. I also understood the fear hidden in the lowered voices of the adults telling these stories.

Whenever my father did not come home on time, my mind began to wander anxiously.

There were no mobile phones then, and no way to track someone’s location. I did not know where he was or what might have happened inside the factory. All I could do was imagine the worst.

For a period of time, I often rode my bicycle out to look for him around the hour when his shift was supposed to end.

I remember one rainy evening in early autumn: a small boy riding a women’s bicycle against the flow of workers leaving the factory.

I was not a confident cyclist. I was also afraid to pull up the hood of my raincoat because I worried that it would block my view of the road.

Anxiety, fear, despair, and sadness all mixed together. Rain ran down my face, and so did my tears. I could no longer tell one from the other.

I do not remember how far I rode. I cannot even clearly remember whether I eventually found my father.

The memory is both real and blurred, but it has remained inside me and become part of who I am.

Later, I continued my education, found work, and left my hometown. My father’s factory eventually closed. The anxiety that had surrounded my childhood slowly disappeared, like steam fading from a steelworks after production had stopped.

Today, I have become an overwhelmed middle-aged man, while my father has become an elderly grandfather who spends his days taking care of the home and the family.

We have not always lived close to one another, and we rarely speak openly about our feelings.

But looking back, those days when I rode my bicycle to find him may come closest to what “father and son” means to me:

Not necessarily being together every day, but living through growth, ageing, worry, separation, and all the unspoken care carried across the passing years.

Happy Father’s Day.

Liu,Xin (Leo Liu) · Contemporary Artist · PEI, Canada