The Father Wound

I am writing this because boys and men everywhere in the world know exactly what I am writing about. (Maybe not consciously but instinctually.) I know that women don’t always understand what the masculine wound is, so I am writing this for the women who know that men carry a deep wound and don’t know how to talk about.

I am writing this because my uncle called me on Saturday and told me that my father had died from complications due to alcoholism.

I’ve never met my father, or my uncle. My father died last September. Around November my mother had found his email address on classmates.com and forwarded it to me. It took me 3 weeks to actually send the email.

I just wanted to say, “I am here.”

His widow found the email as she was cleaning out his files. She asked my uncle to contact me. When he called he just spilled it all out. I had just gotten off a plane from a week in Santa Barbara teaching about connection and reception. My head was spinning and I asked Bill if I could just get my head around it and call him back with a list of questions. He was apologetic and very kind. I hung up and pushed it all back into the far corners of my body where I’ve stored the pain of not knowing my father…

The next day I couldn’t walk. I ended up at the chiropractor. Almost a week later I’m still in recovery.

I had a great dad. My dad, Ken Huey adopted me when I was 4 and raised me as his own. I’ve never (to my recollection) used the “You’re not my dad!” argument with him and in turn, whether he felt it or not, I was treated as his own flesh and blood. I really had an ideal dad/son childhood. Supportive, nurturing, affectionate, stern…a boy couldn’t ask for more.

Except to know his father.

Here is the bottom line; every boy will be wounded by his father. It does not matter whether the father is present and attentive or absent. It’s consistent, it’s hereditary, and it’s essential.

Essential?

Part of the masculine Rite of Passage is to learn how to turn a wound into a gift, to take the scars from the battle of life and wear them proudly. It’s not an easy lesson to learn but we must learn it.

And we must learn it from other men.

Of course my wife was present and very nurturing during this time, but I did not want to share the experience with her. I wanted to work with it with other men. I needed to work with Men who have or didn’t have fathers and who were and were not fathers.
I wanted to work with it and find my place with the wound and the news. I wanted to begin the healing work and then talk with my wife. She’s always there for me but frankly; this is a guy's issue.
This is a man issue, a father and son issue. I needed to be held accountable and challenged to heal this wound. I asked to be pushed here because it was clear I was avoiding the issue (the back pain) and I did not want my wife to be that person. I want her to be the one who strokes my baldhead while I cry my eyes out.

Part of the trials and tribulations of the masculine is the expectancy to finish anything in life. We are hardwired to complete, solve, and finish things. The masculine main priority in life is freedom. Anytime conflict or problems arise, we seek freedom. Whether we find freedom from the conflict through its resolution or avoiding it is the character trait of a man vs. a superior man.

I am writing this for the men who have been wounded. I am writing this for the mothers who can see the wounding take place. I am writing this because I have avoided the issue long enough and my back really hurts. As long as I remember my back has been weak and easily injured. There is no support there.

Why was I not important enough for my father to contact?
Why did he not acknowledge me?
Why didn’t he love me?

All of my life there has been a space that I have tried to fill. It appeared the moment I was rolled into the nursery and there was no father standing over me proud of his son. No dad or stepfather could fill it. No amount of drugs could fill it. No relationship could fill it. No amount of therapy or empowerment could fill it.

So I stopped trying to fill it. I realized I’m not supposed to fill it. I’m supposed to live with it. I’m supposed to take that space and emptiness and sit in it. Being alone in the void is not the end of the world; it’s the beginning of your life beyond providing you use the space for healing instead of trying to heal the space.

I am the father and stepfather I am because my father was never there. I am the child empowerment specialist I am because I learned to give what I never received from my father. I am the husband I am because my father was not there to show me how to be a husband. I am the evolutionary step of the man who was never there.

I am, and in the end, that’s all I wanted my father to know, that I am. Because of and without, I am.

The punch line is that now that he is dead, he’s right here whenever I want. Now I can speak to him and hear him. Now I can feel him. The only obstacles to loving this man are my obstacles, my walls. The love I withhold is the pain I have been carrying. “I want to live, I want to love…but it’s the long hard road out of hell.” (Thanks to Marilyn Manson)

So for the mothers who see the wound and want to teach their son’s to heal it, you cannot. You have to find a man in your community who works with teen boys and let them learn from him. For the fathers who want to avoid it, you cannot. What you can do is love fully and model passion for life. Your son will forgive the wound one day. You cannot force a healing, you can only model it. For the step-dads who feel like you are standing by watching your stepson being wounded by his father, there is nothing you can do except love them like your own and deal with your own wound.

The wound is our gift.

If there is anyway I can support you in your family’s healing, please contact me at aaronhuey@firemountainprograms.com.

From my heart to yours,
Aaron Huey
A Father
A Son