When I lost my dad, I felt conflicted, because we were no-contact after me running out of cope for his emotional abuse. When I first went low contact with him (which involved moving to my Mom’s as a teenager), it was tremendously difficult because I still loved him and would miss him immensely. It would’ve been easier if he had been terrible 100% of the time, but one of his greatest goals in life was to be a better parent to his kids than his disgustingly awful parents had been to him. He did incredible at that, considering the fucked up background he had. I always used to feel sad because I couldn’t really blame him much when he gave me so much after escaping from terrible circumstances — maybe if he’d been able to get stable for a few years and get some therapy before having kids, maybe things could have been different. However, no amount of compassion for how hard he tried can erase the harm he caused me by passing on so much of his own brokenness to me.

It was weird when he died, given we were on (assumed to be indefinite) no contact. I felt like I had already grieved the parent I wished I had, so what was there left to mourn? But there’s a finality to death that means that I’ll never get the closure or support I craved from him, even if that was realistically never going to happen anyway. It took him dying to realise I still hoped for more.

It feels silly, but the BoJack Horseman episode “Free Churro” helped this to click for me. My dad wasn’t half as bad as Bojack’s dead mom, but near the end of the episode long eulogy, he touches on the same angry wistfulness that I felt around my Dad. Beneath any anger is just a confused kid who wants to know why we didn’t get better from a parent who can no longer give us that answer.

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I apologise for talking so much about my own experience here. My hope was to share my sympathy and solidarity, because although my circumstances are no doubt quite different to your own, I recognised some familiar shapes in what you describe of your grief.

It’s okay to feel conflicted, both now and in the future, when the grief is less raw. I’m sorry that he wasn’t able to give you more, and it’s reasonable to feel hurt, and to wonder why he didn’t give you more than he did. I hope that in the (perhaps distant) future, that you’ll be able to speak to people who knew different parts of your dad than you did, and the particularly raw pain you’re feeling now will have ran through you enough that you’ll be able to share memories with others in a way that makes you feel closer to him, rather than more distant. Grief never stops hurting, entirely but I wish you the support and the time you need to grow around that grief, and to continue to learn from both his strengths and his mistakes.

Beyond well wishes, some concrete advice that you might find useful: grief often involves stages of anger, and that may especially be the case with complex grief. It can feel hard to actually feel that anger and move through it when it’s anger at the person who’s dead — certainly I found myself getting stuck in feeling guilty for my complex feelings. A friend advised me to write some very angry notes of all the things I wished I could shout at my Dad, and then to burn them. It sounded overly trite at first, but I was surprised by how much it helped me — it felt like it was exorcising some of the complexity I felt.

However, grief is so incredibly personal that this might not be needed or helpful for you, and that’s okay. Even when different people’s mourning shares some common forms, no-one can tell you how to get through this. You’re allowed to feel conflicted feelings about your dad and his passing, both now and forever. It’s also okay to not know what you need to heal. Your dad is gone, and your world is irrevocably changed for this. That’s a heavy weight to carry with you, so take your time to learn how to manage it.

I’m sorry for your loss.

Are there any memories you’d like to share of him? I’m curious about whether you were thinking of anything in particular when you said he was awesome.