How old was your dad when he died?
He was 55. If he hadn't taken his own life I really don't believe he'd have made it past 60, could be wrong though.
You have singlehandedly shifted my long held view that the children of addicts must feel unloved, dejected and neglected.
I mean, I imagine a lot do feel like that. My dh is the child of an addict, and although his father is still alive, he hates him and very rarely speaks to him. My dad was just a good dad, despite his troubles. Dhs wasn't, and never intended to be. I don't believe an addiction has to define anyone unless they allow it to.
The fact that your dad’s love for you was so strong, that you were always secure in your knowledge of it, in spite of his addiction, is heartwarming to read.
He sounds like a really lovely dad. I’m so sorry you no longer have him in your life.
That has me tearing up a bit, thank you for saying that. He was a really good man, he loved people in general so much, he was never cruel, always stood up for people who needed it. Everyone that knew him adored him. A great deal of people who knew him didn't know he was an addict either, not because he wouldn't tell them, but because it just wasn't obvious, until the very end. I'll never forget the amount of people I didn't know who approached me at his funeral and said things like 'he loved you so much' 'he never stopped talking about how proud he was of you' etc. And I believed them, because he told me those things all the time too. He was just a person who got themselves involved in something really, really bad at a young age, but fought so hard to rise above it.
I'm rambling now sorry 😂