Recurring lucid dream

I've never been able to have a lucid dream except when it's one of my recurring ones.

My father died when I was nine, and ever since then I've dreamt that I met up with him again. In these dreams, at first I'm always surprised, because I thought he was dead. We sit down (we always find someplace to sit down) and talk about that for a while, he always has some sort of explanation and he tells me he's back for good this time. I believe him and we spend the day together, in each one of these dreams we do something different. But there always comes a moment where he says he'll be right back, he has to go somewhere really quick, and I wait and wait and wait, until it dawns on me that he won't be coming back at all.

The first few years this dream was devastating to me every time, but now every time I see my father I am immediately aware that it is a dream, and that he's going to leave. I know that he'll say he's going to come back and I know not to believe him, I let him believe it though. I get to have all the conversations I've always wanted to have with him, touch him, smell him.

It seems as though my dreams can only become lucid if they're recurring ones, otherwise I'm always caught off-guard. Something about not tripping twice on the same stone...