Dear Casey,
Did you watch The Americans? Did you see the series finale? (If not, there are spoilers ahead, but it’s been three years, so, you know, c’mon already.)
The show had a grabby setup: sleeper Soviet agents in 1980s America. And there was a ton of spy shit going on. But at its core it was six seasons of family drama. A married couple watching their children grow up and become independent. Watching each other change, feeling their partnership strained, and almost broken, by the demands of the world, by work and life.
In the finale, with their cover blown, Philip and Elizabeth flee the country in late 1987 with their daughter, Paige. On a train to Montreal, they sit separately to throw off suspicion. When they are stopped at the border, agents inspect their phony documents carefully, looking for spies on the run. The tension is incredible.
Then it lifts.
The doors close and the train moves on. U2’s “With or Without You,” played earlier in the episode, picks up faintly in the background. And as the train leaves the station, we see our heroes relieved. They’ve made it. As a viewer, you think, we’ve made it. After six seasons and 75 episodes, it’s going to be OK. Exhale.
And then… Paige has gotten off the train. The music swells into a wail, and the song plus the expression on her parents’ faces just wrecks me.
I cried the first time I saw it. I tear up now even thinking about it. My breath catches and my heart speeds up. It guts me, this desperate, irrevocable rift. I can hardly bear to think about what it means, this foretelling of a rupture that lasts forever: the time, not too long from now, when my children will leave me behind.
Of course I know that it’s inevitable, and essential, for them to grow up and move out into the world. Doesn’t make the hurt less.
Anyway, all of this is just the background to what I wanted to describe, which is this experience I had that embodies what being a father is like for me.
Last year, I was driving the kids back from the beach on a late summer day, and they were all exhausted. We’d played in the sand, danced in the waves. There were snacks and a cooler and beach toys. It was all very ordinary. We were on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, in a slow-moving column of traffic. Halfway home.
“With or Without You” came on the radio, and all of this stuff that was embodied in that scene of The Americans, the culmination of six seasons, that long march of worry and despair punctuated with occasional moments of hope; it all came up. So did the tears.
And so what, I thought. Let the kids see me cry. I won’t feel bad about it, I’ll show them I am vulnerable and human, just like everybody is. And I’ll provide a good example for the boys, especially, because I certainly remember what it was like for me as a boy, having learned that emotions were a sign of weakness. I’ll let the tears fall, and when the song is over I’ll tell them why, about what I’m feeling. Open, big-hearted. Me, being a good father, I thought.
The song ended. I lowered the volume on the radio and wiped my eyes. Turned briefly toward the backseat where they were buckled in, three across.
All fast asleep.
I drove us home.
This turned out maudlin. And what it's missing is that I found this moment in the car hilarious and pathetic and THAT is what being a parent has been like. Struggle and awkward fumbling and trying to figure it out on the fly. And then every time I think I'm doing a great job, I go to pat myself on the back and fall right on my ass.