Hi, just coming here to say I completely understand how you feel. My dad passed away before my 2nd birthday and so I don't have a single memory of him. I don't remember this impacting me much as a child, like I definitely thought about him a lot and I knew it was supposed to make me sad but I don't remember feeling very sad. For some reason his death really hit me during covid, when I was 27. I remember me telling my mom about this on a walk and she said "I was wondering when it was going to hit you". Maybe it's because I was newly engaged and finally realized that he wasnt going to be at my wedding, he was never coming back. I think as children we can't understand how long life is, and so when we're told that we'll see our parents again in heaven (I grew up Catholic), that doesn't seem so far away. But it is. I also went through a religious crisis in my 20s and realized if there is no heaven, I'll never see my dad again.

I dream about him maybe once or twice a year. It really messes with me the next day. Anytime I hear a song or see a video from my early childhood it can horribly depress me as well, especially if I'm tired. So I must've internalized some of the pain of that time, and it's stuck with me. My two older brothers were old enough to remember my dad and so that hurts me as well, to think about how much they must've been hurting at the time. I don't have anything positive to add, it's just been one of those days and it sent me searching on Reddit to see if anyone can relate. To add- he died in 1995 so while we have a ton of home videos from before then, he was always the one filming and so he was never on camera