a divided man

The ending of This is Us episode 6x15 had me the closest I’ve been to tears in 7 years. It was a backstory to the character Miguel, showing vignettes of his life. The story then closed with his kids and the Pearson family laying him to rest.

While I appreciated learning more about Miguel in the episode, it wasn’t his character’s passing that got to me, it was where his family chose to spread his ashes. Half were put by a tree he planted outside his home, and the other half were scattered in a field he used to play in as a child in Puerto Rico. Seeing this triggered my tear ducts.

It was a portrait of a divided man. A man who struggled to find his place in the world. Being taken from his native land at a young age and brought to a land in which he was perceived as other. Never truly finding a place to call home… well that was until he reconnected with Rebecca and carved a new love story in his later years… but that’s besides the point. He was a divided man. A man out of place.

This resonated with me deeply. It is the plight of an immigrant, especially those who migrate during childhood. You are too shaped by one place to fully belong to the other. You carry both, but neither claims you fully.

This fracture is not dramatic, it is quiet and chronic. It shows up when someone asks where you are really from, or when you visit “home” and realise you are also a visitor there. You learn to become fluent in the ambiguity. There is beauty in it. But at times you can’t help but long for some simplicity.