Lost my first wife due to my own drinking and it took a long time to be able to do much more for my children than to keep up support payments 9paid a lot more than I was legally bound to do as I got sober shortly after the wife left with them).
Turns out their mother hooked up with some men that made me look like a Boy Scout and God must have helped keep it from me because I think I would have committed a very serious sin if I had known. My kids ended up transitioning through my home as young adults and are both doing good now - they call my current wife "Mom" and have nothing to do with their mother.
Been sober for over 29 years and I think I am probably a better person for having gone through my earlier transgressions and developing a new love for what life can be.
Sorry you missed out on your Dad's company - my ex grew up without a Father because her mother left her Dad when she was very young and she ended up very bitter and had some serious issues that I was unaware of when we got married - it sounds like you were very fortunate to have a loving home vs. a bitter one.
My own Dad had his bouts of drinking and it caused strife in our home when I was younger and we were estranged for some of my early adulthood (he was a good father when I was very young and he taught me many useful skills but the friction between him and Mom kept thing tense, especially as I got older and fell into the same alcohol trap he had been mired in) - he got his act straight, I got my own act straight, and we became very close for the last 15 years of his life. Goes to show that adversity can have an upside if God is involved.
God Bless
Adversity does fire character and turn it to steel. You prove that.
Missing a father was not adversity to me - just a hole in my life that I’ve spent decades trying to fill. If I’m strong, then grandmother should be smiling. She was too strong for my mother, as father was. Mother was intellect. Grandmother and father were pure emotion. I’m the mix. Father placed mother on a pedestal where mother never wanted to be. She was his muse when all she wanted was a loaf of bread from the grocery. In one of his letters begging her to come back he wrote that he didn’t understand little girls - he taught rifle to boys and young men - but he hoped I’d understand. And I do, in a way mother never could have.
As for the alcohol, that was the intellectual part of me. Mother explained that I had the extremism of my father and that if I ever touched alcohol I would become an alcoholic. The risk was too great so I’ve never touched alcohol. Since I get high with the joy of life, that was never something I missed.
I’m with my second spouse, too, but had a much easier time of it than you did. Bruce brought me flowers the day of the divorce and I split the debts with him 50/50. And that Christmas I filled his freezer with steaks. I still love him to this day. We were better friends than spice.
I’m so glad you have children. There’s a part of you that will be living down through the ages and many of those descendants will make a mark that you would be proud to know. And you show them the character of strength and love and protectiveness that will enrich their lives. That’s a wonderful heritage.
Without children, I can only leave my research and my writing. And my music video art. But I write! I’ve got close to 30,000 web pages up and everything I learn I push out to everyone. Mother was brilliant and I’m a pale imitation. But she used that incredible mind to play mental games, not leave anything behind. As she was dying, she asked how everything she knew could disappear. That is where I put my effort. Everything I know WON’T disappear if the computer archives are up to it.
So one of the things I have up are the love letters from father to mother, as well as his marvelous poetry. I put them up on the web over 20 years ago. A gentleman wrote back then and asked to bring them to his fathers’ support group because they express so well what divorced fathers feel.
http://www.iment.com/maida/family/father/letters.htm
And you don’t need blessing. You’re doing a brilliant job of living your life. Keep inspiring your children!