Of everyone in our convoy, I have perhaps the most karma with the Olympic flame, and in particular, the lantern that carries it.

After all, my first public appearance as spokesman for the Beijing Olympic torch relay in January involved me introducing the lantern to the world.

To be frank, it still felt quite empty (literally) and distant for me at the time; my personal feelings toward the flame were initially built up during the relays in Greece, when we witnessed city after city and town after town local residents' devotion and passion to it.

These encounters - watching the flame's dance while being carried atop an open top vehicle along the Alps, in particular - gave me a concrete and ever-more holier sense of the Olympic flame and the significance of our mission.

By the time I first held the safety lantern - in which the Olympic flame is kept alight - on our way back from Greece, there was much more warmth and chemistry to it.

Over the past 19 international legs I have built a very close personal bond with the flame.

During every leg I was concerned about an array of issues related to it - for example, where the lanterns were kept.

Sometimes, several of them were kept in the Chinese Embassy; at others, in the hotel.

In Nagano, the Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cui Tiankai insisted he be checked in to the room closest to the lanterns, so that his three security guards would add a layer of protection.

The lanterns were always taken good care of, with the attendants watching them through the night.

But still, I would occasionally visit the flame in the small hours, as I could not put the worries out of my mind: Are the lanterns and flames okay? Is the flame's transfer going to be all right? Is it perhaps too sunny, too windy, too rainy or too snowy?

Before our trip, I never thought I would have had so much time to chat with the flame attendants.

And when I did, we spoke about the flame and how the lanterns were cleaned and kept. We always shared the same concerns.

The boys' undying devotion to the flame moved every member of the delegation, and became a source of my personal sentiment when they were wronged.

The past month was a gradual process of gaining proximity - between individuals, groups and nations, and between the lantern and me.

Like everyone else in the delegation, I am absolutely captivated by its beauty and the messages it carries and symbols it represents.

And to promote its messages and symbols, I have, like everyone else, had sleepless nights working, waking at a distorted time to an unrecognizable place, or trying to open a wrong hotel room - a different hotel every other day.

No days, no nights, no time zones, no seasons, 97,000 km, 19 cities in 30 days.

Two more legs away until the 113 relays on the mainland, but the flame has already returned to Hong Kong on Chinese territory.

And I think all that is worth it - not least out of the universal respect for the values the flame carries, and the lanterns enjoying red-carpet treatment along the way.

A photo op with the flame has been "taken advantage" of by each member of our delegation - and more.

The Chinese ambassadors to Iceland and Angola, where our chartered plane made brief stopovers, both came on board to get a photo with the lanterns.

So in all, a moment of instant relief and unwillingness to part with the lantern that I'm still with but am already beginning to miss, and that seems heavier than ever before.

And yet, as the wise man put it, where there is end there is the beginning - the end of the global relay, and the beginning of the flame that will burn in my heart for the rest of my life.

Qu Yingpu, deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily, is spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay