Just found out my father is dead - no one wrote an obituary

So I’ll give him the one he earned:

We hadn’t seen each other in a little over 20 years. He spent my high school years in prison and I only saw him once briefly after he got out around 1997. He beat the shite out of my mother. He was a sociopath and an extreme narcissist. The faults that he would acknowledge were always someone else’s fault, mainly his father.

His father was a violent man who beat his wife and all of his children and anyone else he could get his hands on and met his end on the wrong end of a bar fight with a gang of bikers. Something he did broke my father early on and he never figured out what life was about. After he and my mother diviorced when I was 8, he became a drifter and gave up his role of father and any and all responsibility in his life. He died pennyless and alone and there was no one there to write an obituary. Even if there had been, I don’t know what they would have said.

As bad as things turned out for him and between us, he was charismatic. I loved him and idolized him as a child. Even after he left us I defended him. I thought he hung the moon. As I think about that time, it makes me very sad. I don’t know if I’m sad for the little boy who’s hero walked out on him or for the father who broke the heart of the one person in the world who would have loved him no matter what if he’d have made an effort to be ay kind of father. I’m sad he was so broken that he died completely alone and that no one loved him.
As he realized the end was near he reached out to me a couple years ago. A friend of his found my adress on Facebook and he sent a letter asking about my life. I wrote him back with some details of what was going on and told him about each of my children. He wrote back only that he lost my first note and that he was disturbed that I didn’t adress his as “dad” and then blaming his actions on what his father had done to him. I was hoping at 80 he’d be ready to take some ownership for his decisions, but nope. He wanted me to call him “dad” before he died for whatever reason, which was something I couldn’t do. I didn’t write back and we never communicated again. I don’t know if I’ll come to regret that.

This afternoon, for no particular reason, I googled his name and “obituary” and after some searching found what looked like a notice of his death in a local LA paper from Feb of this year. A couple minutes ago, I spoke with the funeral home that picked him up from the nursing home and confirmed it was him.

I didn’t think I’d feel anything when I found out he was gone, but early memories keep flooding in of times we spent together and how much I loved him once.

Dear Diary..I know, but it’s easier to talk to people I don’t know.