My view vs. Alison's on Bruce's death

Throughout the novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Alison contemplates her father's untimely death and the truth behind it. The general belief was that he died in an accident in which a truck ran him over as he accidentally stepped back onto the road at the wrong time. However, Alison theorizes that her father, Bruce, actually committed suicide and intentionally jumped in front of that bus. She attributes his death to her recent coming out weeks before but I think there must've been more to his death, I think Alison might be a little disillusioned when looking back on her father's death.

While I don't think there is any significant evidence pointing to an accident or a suicide, I believe that Alison might not be viewing her father's death through an exactly objective lens. In my opinion, if Bruce's death was truly suicide, I would attribute it to the fact that the mom was organizing a divorce between the two. Towards the beginning of the novel, I agreed with Alison, however, the more I read the book, the more I thought that Alison had less of an impact on her father's death than I had initially suspected. I originally thought that Bruce died nearly right after Alison came out, but we learn later that it was a couple months after and that the two had interacted face-to-face for a week before his passing, and in these scenes, we see some bittersweet moments between the two with both acknowledging their newly open sexuality.

While I'm not exactly sure if Bruce did or did not kill himself, I would not say it's just down to Alison's coming out if his death was not accidental. However, I would say that Alison might play some part. Bruce struggles with his sexuality a lot throughout the novel, and I think that he feels he can't be as expressive about it as he would like to be. He forces down his sexuality and keeps it internal and only shares it with those who he has intercourse with. Meanwhile, Alison is able to come out as a lesbian and express her true sexuality which Bruce feels he cannot do. We see this when Bruce forces Alison to dress up in girly clothes because he can't do so. This feeling of being trapped as well as the divorce may have led to Bruce's death.

While this is definitely plausible, I think that Alison almost hopes that there is a connection there rather than just saying it was an accident or it was because of the divorce or something else. Alison expresses how she feels she didn't have as strong a connection with her father as she had hoped. I think that Alison hopes that she had some level of impact on her father or that her father cared about what she did. Alison didn't receive enough affection from her father and she wants confirmation that he genuinely cared at least some about her to the point that her coming out would cause him to take his own life. 

Although nobody will truly know the true reason behind Bruce's death, I think that there are many possibilities as to how he died and if he did commit suicide, why he did. I am not nearly as convinced as Alison that his death is connected to her coming out, as possible as it is.