Thank you for posting this. Two years after my mom died from a long-term illness, my dad died unexpectedly when I was in my 20s. We never really connected well and she was our go-between, but now she was gone. Then one morning we were making breakfast together while I was home on a visit, and he just says out of the blue, “I couldn’t get through this without you. Not everyone is lucky to be close to their children.”

So, boom–it all clicked in place: his own dad was a real piece of shit and he was doing the best he could without any roadmap to follow other than a very painful example of what NOT to do. Honestly, I should have figured it out earlier but when you’re a kid you overestimate how much adults are doing things because they “want to be this way” over not knowing any better. I miss him.