I can so relate to your post, Zwang. You are trying to make light of it, but inside I sense you are really, really hurting. When my mother died, (after over 30 years of marriage), my dad got remarried a couple of years later. Of course I still visited, but I resented her presence. I wanted my mother to be there, not her! (Even though I'd encouraged my dad to find someone and to be happy).

I wanted so very much to spend some time alone with my dad, just the two of us, without her. It never happened. I should have told him I wanted that, but didn't, and now I'm sorry. If we'd just go to lunch, or dinner, or a movie, ANYTHING. But he died about 10 years later, after marrying the new woman, and now I feel such grief and hollowness, emptiness, you name it, that we didn't spend that time alone together. That I didn't open my mouth. He couldn't read my mind, of course.

You still have a chance. You can still say something to your dad about spending time together. I know that feeling of visiting and feeling weird, and things being foreign, as she was not my mother, yet she was at my mother's house, if you know what I mean. I knew things would never be the same again.

When you said you missed your dad knocking at your door, it really did something to me, because I miss that too, so much! And yes, it was annoying to me sometimes, but what I wouldn't give for that knock now! Or just to hear his voice on the telephone. I had a customer when I was working who sounded very much like him on the phone, and every time he called, it set me back on my heels for a second.

It's not too late for you, is what I'm trying to say. Don't be like me, somewhere down the line where your father has passed, and you can no longer say those things you want from him--his time, his attention. I'm sure he wants it as much as you do, but doesn't know how to express it. Don't wait until it's too late.