No contact for 20 years. He remarried a younger woman and had a child. Move across the country. Estrangement followed with me and my siblings, over odd and sometimes made up issues and lies, at the hands of his DW. They no-showed weddings and other of [his] family events. He has never met my son. It's odd for sure on Father's day.

My parents divorced when I was about 6 and my mother basically drove him off, and then moved us across the country. It was the 70s and there was none of this 50/50 custody; kids stayed with the mother and that was that. I have never forgiven him for being 90% absent, mainly because he left me with a crazy mother. I think he would have been a pretty good dad, and my life would have been totally different if I'd had him -- but I didn't.

He died at 65, and I wish he hadn't left the world so soon. I did and do love him. My mother died at 69, and it was a relief -- at the end of the day, I did not love her.