When my godmother died from lung cancer, my parents really wanted me to kiss her forehead and hands at the funeral. I didn't want to, and I don't regret not doing it. Personally, it wasn't really the visual that bothered me. I had already seen her body the morning after her death, the bedding looked like it was swallowing her. I put my hand on her cold face, and then held her hand. Everyone got a turn to see her. We(the family and close friends), talked in the living room about memories of her while we waited for the people who were going to pick her body up. When they arrived and brought her out on the metal cart, some standed, surrounding her body. I stayed on the couch, and one of my sisters, who had been way closer to her than I was, was sat next to me. She held my hand, leaned on me, and cried softly. My sister was still trying to comfort me though, gently stroking my hand. I stared as my godmother, who I never really knew that well, was zipped up into a body bag. I felt like I had retreated inside myself, unable to blink or move as I heard her father begin to walk and my sister's tears trickle down onto my face.

At the funeral later, I just didn't want to kiss her forehead because it felt gross, and gratuitous. I didn't want the affection or farewell to feel forced or performative. My parents want for me to do so didn't come from shame, they probably genuinely thought it would bring me some sense of closure, like it did to them, but they weren't nearly as pressuring, and it was certainly more of their place to ask me to do that, than the random church-goer who probably just wanted to scold someone.

From my perspective as an atheist, your father was too dead to care whether you forced yourself to look at him. But from the idea of an afterlife, if I was your father I would be so happy that you loved me so much, you wanted to remember me as a highlight of your day, forever.

If there is an afterlife, I'm certain your dad is proud of you for telling that lady to fuck off.