Grown-up experiences need to be separated from a child’s experience.
I see it in my childhood, I remember while we were refugees, I felt safe as long as my mother was next to me. When I see a long line of trucks and cars, and people carrying their belonging on the top of their heads… I feel nostalgic, I feel a sense of home… Now as a grown-up, I know that was the sight of people fleeing their homes, due to war, famine, floods, etc… but back then I felt safe, I didn’t know we were refugees I didn’t understand the hell my mother was experiencing, the loss, being a widow in her early 20ees, being a woman in a war-torn land. One of my most precious memories is standing next to my mother, and watching lines and lines of trucks and cars pass us by. I didn’t know we were becoming refugees.
Grown-up experience needs to be separated from a child’s experience.

Therefore I don’t need to taint my son’s memory of him! when he beautifully talks about him, I listen and validate his experience. Indeed he was a good father to him. And that is all my son needs to know.