Our nation’s greatest challenge: Absent fathers

In the absence of my father, I have longed, at times in my life, for affirmation. For the steadying hand on the shoulder.

For paternal love that is reassuring, establishing, uplifting, grounding, life-giving — only to find none.

At times, I found paternal love so humanly lacking as to be virtually nonexistent.

I am the son of mostly de facto fathering — of the pieces and particles that fell from the cloaks of men who filed past my life, men whose paths crossed with mine, or with whom I walked for a time.

But whether it was the case that those men closest to me would not, or could not promote me, neither fully embraced or fully esteemed me, I cannot say which of these was responsible for my paternal lack. I do know that for much of my life I felt fatherless, like “no man’s” son — having been abandoned by my natural father by age 4.

I eventually found solace in my reflections as an adult upon the frailties of all men, including my own and my father’s; by forgiving those men whom I deem to have in ways failed me; and also in my own willingness to provide paternal nurturing and substance to my own children and others.

I have found strength and a measure of healing in my earnest desire to be a better father and a better man than my own natural father and to learn from the mistakes of others and my own.

Still, even at 55, there is a hole, an emptiness, in a certain place in my heart — a place meant to be filled with a lifetime of memories made with my father. I suspect there always will be.

And yet, I have found strength in the presence of an Eternal Father, and in the good gained from even imperfect men I encountered from boyhood to manhood. And though I remember not the joy of my own father taking delight in me, or ever giving me a Christmas present or so much as a birthday gift, I do know now and also embrace the joys and responsibility of fatherhood.

And there is a part of me — the little boy in me — who finds in me, the kind of father he always wished he had.

That is my endeavor, a promise made even as a little boy. It is a promise I intend to keep until my last breath.

Someone once told me during one of life’s inevitable storms, not to “despise the process.” That our painful struggles, heartache and sufferings can ultimately create in us a heart to help and heal others.

Indeed I have come to believe that lessons learned in suffering can ultimately serve a greater purpose: the mending of broken hearts, perhaps even the healing of a nation.

It is the kind of healing that I see as being so needed today in an America where millions of girls and boys live absent their biological father and, in far too many cases, without any semblance of this figure so essential to our emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.

Indeed I see no greater issue today confronting our children, our communities, and our country.

We must now reclaim, revive, rebuild and restore “the village” — one child, one father at a time.

On this Father’s Day, I am grateful for the men who stepped in when my father cut out: Eddie Clincy, George A. Hagler and Paul J. Adams III.

And my heart is overwhelmed with sweet memories of you. For in my father’s absence, you were present. And in so many ways, you filled my empty spaces.

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com

Follow the Editorial Board on Twitter: Follow @csteditorials

Tweets by @CSTeditorials