he came + sat in front of me
- matilde tomat
- Feb 20
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 26

I have been reading Jung's Answer to Job, lately. I felt compelled, called, almost dragged to get that specific book, and then to sit and read it. It felt like "someone" turned my head towards that aisle in a bookshop, or opened up a website for me, pointed to a book, dropped it into the basket and paid for it, literally obliging me to read it. I could feel this presence pacing up and down in front of me, eagerly waiting for my feedback. "So... what do you think?! Eh?!"
My feedback was in the form of tears. I felt moved like I haven't in a long time.
I saw this father in so much pain, oblivious to the world around him, running behind his oldest son, a nasty piece of work, and trying to sort his mess out. I can see him not knowing what to do. Ok, your son is a cheat and a murderer and an addict and a sadist and a rapist and you begged him to stop, to change, nothing! But he is still your son. You wish he would stop, but he doesn't and instead laughs right into your face. His pain wasn’t just an ache in the chest. It was hot metal searing inside his ribcage, a fire he could neither douse nor stoke. It burned ceaselessly.
He watched his son with the same dread a man watches a ship sinking into the sea, knowing he couldn’t swim fast enough, couldn’t reach far enough to pull him back from the depths.
Every day, he ran after his son like a man chasing the wind. His voice hoarse from shouting, his knees weak from falling in desperation. His anger gnawed at his stomach, a hunger he couldn’t satisfy. There were days he couldn’t stand to look at him, but worse were the nights when he closed his eyes and saw him, blood on his hands, with a taunting smile seared into the darkness behind his eyelids.

Too many times I saw fathers like this one when working in addiction. Broken fathers who wish for miracles, who wish someone could do something, anything, to stop their son or daughter from hurting themselves and others on their path to destruction. I saw them crying, begging, wishing even death: at times for themselves, at times for their child and then feeling guilty for just thinking about that. Not knowing what to do. In the process, forgetting that there is the rest of the world, out there, asking for them: a wife, a partner, another child, their parents, their boss, co-workers, and friends... Their life focused only on one thing, and one thing only: help, rescue and save that child and in the process save themselves.
Until one day, exhausted, "weary and bruised to the bone" they realised that they, too, had hurt all these other people just by ignoring them. And so, they reached the centre of the square, kneeled, and asked for forgiveness. The rest of the world is angry at them: the other children feel forgotten and unloved; wives feel cheated and abandoned; friends feel unheard and dismissed. They couldn’t remember when the seasons had changed. Was it autumn already? The leaves crunched beneath their feet, but they hadn’t noticed them falling. Their wives’ faces had lines now: lines they hadn’t seen form, hadn’t been there to trace with their hands. Women now lovers of other hurt fathers. The world outside their children’s chaos was slipping away from them.

So, this rest of the world is angry and turns bullying, aggressive, maniacal because they had enough! How could they? How could these fathers forget about us? Isn't a father, a grown-up man, supposed to teach, help, protect and love? Shouldn’t a father, like my father, remember when he is supposed to come and pick up her daughter instead of being drunk and hiding somewhere? Shouldn’t fathers remember birthdays, buy presents at Christmas, bring flowers to those mothers, check you are ok, teach you to drive and how not to be conned by a mechanic?
When the realization hit them, it does like a punch to the gut: the birthdays missed, the hands they hadn’t held; their daughters, now grown, strangers to him. Their wives, their eyes dark with disappointment, with the distance they had placed between them, wilting away. Their guilt like a weight pressing into their chest, heavier with each breath they took. The world forgets these fathers are broken. That they’re hurting, barely reasoning, just surviving.
One of these fathers came and sat in front of me. Looked me straight in the eyes and asked me: can you see, now? I am sorry, I wasn't there for you.
This Father tried everything. He begged, he pleaded, he tried bartering and bargaining. He used promises which at times were false and others not kept. He changed his mind often looking for a solution. He even threatened and resorted to vengefulness. But both his oldest son and the rest of the world could not care less. I mean, some of the people around him still wanted to believe that one day he would understand, would turn around, show finally up, help and keep his promises. Until one day, with his eyes wide open, he decided to face all the other ones he let so badly down.
He stood before them, not as an invincible hero from a book, but as a man stripped bare, vulnerable, his hands trembling as they gripped the rough wood. That day he stood there, in front of everybody and experienced himself what it meant to be abandoned, what it meant to call on the father and have no answer. He stood there and allowed scorn, vengeance, pain, mock and derision to be poured over him. He experienced the desperation, the pain and the silent loneliness he himself, as a hurt father, inflicted on all the other ones.
So we killed him.

We made sure he felt the nails before they pierced him: their cold, sharp promise of pain. And when they drove into his flesh, he cried out. Not because of the agony in his hands, but because, in that moment, he understood. He finally understood the bitterness of abandonment. We gave him vinegar as a reminder of how the tanginess of his silence made us shiver. The silence of the father he had once been. We dressed him up like an alcoholic puppet, red cloth and a crown of thorns, a bit destitute king, a bit scanty father christmas, and the rest a sad scarecrow. He never said a word. He knew that if we wanted to make peace with him, he had to endure everything and more of what we experienced because of his ineptitude as a father.
It wasn’t his second son coming down on earth and walking amongst us. I think that we forget that it was him who came. It wasn’t that we did not recognise his son. We didn’t recognise him. How could we? He was never around and we never saw him! He was hurting and we were hurting. His first son, the one made of light and turned into a snake was running around being a right fucked up pain in the arse, knowing that his father would never punish him. How many times do we hear that same story repeated over and over again: you don’t know who I am! I will call my dad and he will come and help me! A phone call and my dad will punish you!
He tried to tell us once, don’t you remember? The story of the prodigal son, how he waited for him to return to his senses. We were, and still are, so hurt that I don’t think we listened. We heard, but we didn’t really listen.
Because if we had, we’d know now that he is still within us. He hasn’t gone anywhere. Not really. Oh god, he’s still hurting, yes! But now, he sees us.
***
C. Jung : Answer to Job

Stark and beautiful