My father moved on to his next life today at the body age of 85. I will only be able to see him in my memories.

Among lots of other thinking, I want to dig deeper on this question.

First of all, I don’t have much memory about the time when I was under the age of 5. And secondly, I don’t think I was a conscious being during that time. So how much time the “I” spent with him during that period shouldn’t count.

Then during the age of 6 and 7, I split my time between my parents and my grandparents in another city. So it’s one year with my parents.

~ 1 year

Then during the age of 8 and 18, I went to schools, also splitting the years half and half at my parents and at my grand parents. So about 5 years with my parents, plus 1 year of all school holidays time added.

~ 7 years

During all the above 7 years, my parents had been very busy with work and I had been busy with school or playing with school mates. I estimate about 6 hours daily (not counting sleep time) when I and my father were at the same vicinity (in or around the house), and about 3 hours daily when we did something together (eating, talking, playing etc. and we didn’t have TV to watch together).

~ 7 years: 15330 hours nearby, 7665 hours direct

Then from 18 to 26, I studied in university in another city and have been back home during school holidays most of the times. So that’s about 1 year added up. And the time on a daily bases is about the same as in previous periods.

~ 8 years: 17520 hours nearby, 8760 hours direct

At gae of 26 I went to America to study and then lived there to 37, and I had no time to see my parents.

~ 8 years: 17520 hours nearby, 8760 hours direct

Between 37 and 42, I went to China to work for multi-national companies in a different city from my parents, and I have seen my parents less than half a month.

~ 8 years: 17650 hours nearby, 8850 hours direct

After I started tending my own business, I had some quality time with my parents. But I lived in another city, so the total time together is about 1 year. Daily nearby time was like 14 hours and daily direct time 10 hours.

~ 9 years: 22760 hours nearby, 12250 hours direct

Then for many years I have been a digital nomad and traveling the world, I only saw them on video calls.

~ 9 years: 22810 hours nearby, 12300 hours direct

And I wasn’t with him when he moved on.

So, 22350 hours equals 950 days and is about 2.6 years. That’s the total time I had been around my father.

Direct time with him was just 512 days which is 1.4 years.

Cheers! Santé! Prost!