The Father Wound: From Abandonment to Anthem
12 June 2025I’ve always been deeply attuned to my emotions. I feel everything intensely, whether it’s my own pain or someone else’s. I could watch a movie and instantly weep, not just for the characters but for the echoes of real pain it stirred in me.
But I was taught —implicitly and explicitly— that feeling this deeply was a flaw. A weakness. A personality defect. Especially in my community, where emotional vulnerability wasn’t just discouraged, it was often mocked.
One of the earliest and most enduring sources of pain for me was my father’s absence. In the South African, Cape Coloured community, absent fathers are so common that the pain has become a punchline: “Your dad is still out buying milk.” It’s funnier in Afrikaans, of course, but the pain beneath it is universal. And real.
I only found out my father didn’t want to be part of my life when I was around 10 or 11. So many things happened to me at that age. I remember there was an incident —one I won’t go into— that forced me to question everything. I had believed my sibling and I shared a father, but I was wrong. Deep down, I think I always knew. I just didn’t want it to be true. But once the truth was confirmed, it shattered me.
And I had no one to turn to.
By then, I’d already absorbed the message that talking about your pain wasn’t acceptable. You don’t burden others with your struggles. So I turned inward. I turned to writing — my safe space, my constant companion. I wrote poems, songs, and letters about the abandonment I felt. No one ever read them, and they’ve since been lost, but I remember what they gave me: comfort. Expression. A place to hold my grief.
About twenty years ago, that grief resurfaced. It blindsided me, as grief often does. I was overwhelmed, desperate for relief. Again, I turned to pen and paper. I remember sitting at the edge of my bed, rocking back and forth as the tears poured down. And then it came to me: a song. Tell Me Why. For years, this song became my secret balm. Whenever the grief crept back, I’d hum its melody, and it would soothe me.
But as I grew older, I realised something important. While the song offered comfort, it didn’t heal me. The pain remained — hidden, shapeshifting, influencing my life in ways I hadn’t understood.
Grief turned into decisions. And those decisions often turned into damage.
For years, I stayed in unhealthy relationships. The more a man pulled away emotionally, the more I gave of myself. I fought to keep the connection alive. I sacrificed my body, my boundaries, and my sense of self — believing that if I just loved them harder, they would treat me better. That they would finally see me. Choose me.
But they never did. And worse — they didn’t leave.
I did.
But only after the damage had already been done. I left too late. Long after I had lost pieces of myself trying to make something work that was never meant to. I walked away carrying the weight of wounds I never should have had to endure in the first place.
I wish I could say I learned this lesson early. But healing doesn’t work that way. Not for most of us. It was only through therapy that I began to understand these patterns — to recognise them for what they were: trauma responses.
As I began healing, I returned to Tell Me Why. But this time, I was different. I was no longer a child begging for answers. I was a woman reclaiming her voice. The song began to shift — no longer a cry for validation, but a declaration of strength.
Through this transformation, Tell Me Why evolved into Thank You, Daddy —the same song, but with a new perspective, a new name, and a renewed sense of power. What was once a song of sorrow became an anthem of resilience.
That song gave me back my power — a power I may have never known before. It helped me understand that the abandonment had shaped far more than my relationships. It had altered my personality. It had made it hard to trust. Especially men. Especially love.
Because it wasn’t just the loss that hurt; it was the silence that followed. The unspoken rule that you don’t talk about it. That you suck it up. That you laugh it off.
But that silence? That’s what truly did the damage.
The truth is: you don’t ‘get over’ something like this. That’s a myth. And if you think you have, I challenge you to look at your life —your choices, your relationships, your pain. Healing isn’t forgetting. It’s remembering with clarity and choosing a new path anyway.
Facing yourself —really facing yourself— is the hardest work you can do. It’s easier to ignore the ways we’ve become toxic, defensive, or avoidant. It’s easier to blame others. But true healing demands that we take responsibility; not blame, but responsibility. And that’s where real transformation begins.
I don’t expect my community’s attitude toward these conversations to shift overnight. Honestly, I’m not sure it will change anytime soon. But that doesn’t absolve us of the work. We must break the cycle. We must stop handing our unhealed trauma to others like it’s their burden to carry.
That’s why I decided to release this song. It’s the most personal, most vulnerable piece I’ve ever shared. My hope is that it finds those who need it most — those who have been silenced, who have been shamed into suffering in solitude.
I hope this song gives you what it gave me: comfort, clarity, and the courage to imagine a new version of yourself. One that is healed. Whole. Brave. Kind — even when kindness isn’t easy. A version of you that spreads light, stands for truth, and sees the humanity in others, no matter what.
A version of you that existed long before the trauma.
A version that was always meant to be…
Until next time — keep the music alive and buzzing.
Carnita Bee
