We have not been incredibly close over our lifetimes, and I was very much looking forward to us spending some time getting to know one another, now, as adults who had both forgiven the past and put it behind us. I have to be honest with you: I’m angry that I won’t ever get the relationship that I always dreamed about having with him. This disease that I’ve heard others speak about all too often is robbing us from having that father-daughter relationship we were on the road to building, and I truthfully feel ripped off, frustrated and scared.

It is an interesting place I find myself in. On one hand, I’m the loyal daughter, ready and willing to give 100 per cent of myself to a man who, for the most part, didn’t give me a fraction of himself.

I want to help and be there like a good daughter, but then the memories of him not being there for me hit me square between the eyes.

I’m actually drawing great comfort from knowing that at some point down the road, my dad will no longer remember me as his eldest daughter, but as somebody who he is happy to be with.

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