My father died in 1993. Before that he was emotionally unavailable, so not there for me even when he was there, which wasn't all that often.
My mother abused me physically and emotionally throughout my childhood and I can't decide whether he actively colluded with her or whether he was just powerless in the face of her bizarre behaviour, which I now think stemmed from untreated mental health issues. Either way it is difficult to respect him.
Just when I thought I had got my head round that, I weighed up my health, lots of hereditary auto-immune stuff going on, and realised that these things do not run in either parents' family and coupling that with his almost complete lack of interest in me, I'm not even sure now that he was my father.
So please forgive me if I am not taking part in today's festivities.
D