It sounds like your family is dealing with how your father was by being in denial. Unfortunately, this does happen a lot, it's a way of not dealing with how a parent's negative aspects affected them personally, so it's also being in their own denial about their own issues that came from the dysfunctional ways your father behaved. Also, each child will have their own ways of how the family dynamics affected them personally and how they related to your father and developed a bond with him that you may have never had with him.

Are you the youngest child? The oldest? how many siblings do you have?