When a parent dies, the world typically offers sympathy and condolences. For Erica Lefevre, that comfort was absent. Her father passed away nine years ago, and the silence from those around her spoke volumes. People assumed that because they were estranged, his death was not a true loss. For Erica, now 49, the reality was far more profound.
The Final Message That Never Arrived
The news of her father's death came via a phone call from his girlfriend. She revealed that he had sent a message to Erica announcing he had lung cancer. However, Erica had blocked his number on her phone, a decision made to protect her own mental health. She never saw that final plea for connection. The revelation left her devastated, compounding her grief with a heavy layer of guilt that persists to this day.
Despite this anguish, Erica maintains she has no regrets about the estrangement itself. She is certain that cutting ties was necessary for her own wellbeing. The roots of their fractured relationship stretch back to her childhood in Kent. Her parents separated when she was just seven years old, primarily due to her father's struggle with alcohol.
A Childhood of Absence and Rejection
After the separation, contact was sporadic. For a couple of years, she saw him every other weekend. This ended abruptly when she was nine years old. Her father had started a new family, having a baby with a new partner. Weekend visits to his house became a source of deep pain, as she watched him play the attentive father to his new daughter and stepchildren—a role he had never fulfilled for her.
"I would find myself wondering what was so good about them that made him want to be a proper dad," Erica recalls. She internalised the blame, believing his abandonment was due to some fault of her own. The visits stopped completely after he failed to pick her up one day, leaving her waiting. Subsequent birthdays and Christmases passed without contact, a silence that lasted into her adulthood.
A Brief Reconciliation and Final Break
Decades later, after the birth of her first child at age 34, Erica attempted reconciliation. Hoping her children could have a grandfather, she re-established contact through her half-sister. They met for dinner, but old patterns quickly resurfaced. Her father blamed Erica's mother for their estrangement, making claims about withheld presents and returned maintenance money that Erica knew to be false.
"I realised he had convinced himself he had tried his hardest to be a good dad," she says. Their political views also clashed, leading Erica to decide she did not want her children around him. The final break came after a dispute over a missed birthday lunch, which prompted a series of venomous text messages from her father. To protect herself, Erica blocked his number. Approximately a year later, she received the call informing her of his death.
Attending his funeral, she sat at the back and listened to eulogies for a man she did not recognise. She left early, avoiding conversation. While her half-sister received an outpouring of sympathy on social media, Erica received none. The world saw no loss, but she had lost the father she never had, and with his death, the faint, lingering hope of a different ending vanished forever.
Erica Lefevre, who writes 'The Incidental Parent' blog, now lives in Kent with her husband and their two sons, aged 14 and nine. Her story underscores the complex, often invisible grief of estrangement—mourning not just a person, but the loss of potential, understanding, and a proper goodbye.
