When you have something big to say, say it with Lava Cakes

I temporarily fell off the blogging bandwagon, but again for a good reason of chasing after the news for my paid writing jobs.

But then I saw Hamilton. And for a $10 donation to Broadway Cares/Equity fights AIDS, I got a pen.

A pen to write my story.

So, let’s get back to this story.

The story I started about a month ago which I plan to tell piece by piece until its end. Even though people are telling me to get on with it, get over it.

People, this is my getting on with it and getting over it.

If you need to binge read to be all caught up on the story so far, you can start with this post.  and then continue from there. 

Again, names have been changed to protect identities. 

If you know who I am talking about, please kindly shut up and don’t reveal who I am talking about.

….. 3 p.m .

A sunny afternoon late March

I drove home after working out as quickly as I could at my son’s bequest. There was something important he needed to tell me. Some kind of proclamation. An announcement.

The smell of a fresh-baked chocolate something hit me as soon as I opened the door to the mudroom off the garage. A smell that would lead me to undo the benefits of my workout.

There they were, Elias and Jonah, baking up a storm, there were measuring cups, bowls and an empty box of Dunkin Hines on the counter.

“Mom, Jonah has something big to tell you.”

Now this was after a week of figuring out just how I could take in another kid, well, young adult, really, into my family’s life.

A week where my husband and Jonah and I had met, without his tag along friend Elias, my son, to discuss how his life had gone so far, and where he wanted his life to go, and how and what kind of help he needed – both from us and hopefully a good therapist – for him to get there.

We came to the agreement that in order to live with us, there would be chores.

No problem with that. He’d done most of the chores when he lived with his father.

We came to the agreement that he would need to seek out therapy to deal with the alleged trauma of why he needed a home in the first place.

And we agreed that he could not drive our car. Not because we did not trust him with our car, but that we just did not have the budget to insure another male teen driver under the age of 25 on our policy.

With that understanding, driving Mr. Jonah around would be my responsibility. No problem there, nothing Mrs. Mom the chauffeur wasn’t used to, what’s one more kid to drive around?

So, to make sure I had covered everything, I overstepped my boundaries and, in advance, called the director of the day camp where he would be working at that summer to see how he would get there if he had no car.

Was there a bus that picked up the campers and where and when did it pick up and is it okay if Jonah rode that bus to camp too, because he has no car?

Because I had to ask.

Because, ultimately, I would be playing the mom. And moms think of everything.

“You know, I don’t know who you are lady, and I know Jonah,” the camp director told me over the phone. “He is an amazing kid, but he is an adult and to my knowledge he has not yet sent back his employment contract for the summer and I shouldn’t have told you that either.”

I knew that in the off-season the camp director was an attorney. I stammered. I had nothing to say, and I guess he caught on that I was a bit stymied for my lack of saying anything over the phone.

“It’s okay, lady, I know you are just trying to help him out,”

“That’s right, I am. And I am just trying to cover every scenario in terms of what he will need over the summer.”

“I know. It’s okay. If he can make it to the bus in the morning, he can ride it to camp.”

Okay.

So, legally or illegally I had settled that.

But still, on that drive home from the gym, I thought he had made his mind up to live with Sabrina’s family.  And I had to be okay with that. This was not about me. I still am telling myself that. It never was about me.

Do you ever have to tell yourself that?

This was what would be best for Jonah.

But there they were, Elias and Jonah in the kitchen, with big smiles on their faces.

And they had baked me lava cakes.  If my memory served me correctly, they also bought whipped cream and strawberries for a garnish. The works.

“What’s all this?” asked. A very Merry Poppins sort of question. I joined them around the granite island, an island we would have many conversations around, and laughing, and arguing, and sometimes tears, in the months to come.

And then Jonah spoke. He said he knew Sabrina’s family offered him to live with them as well. And it would probably be more practical because they would have let him drive their car.

But…

“But, I have to say, since I have been coming around here, no one, not even my aunts or uncles or my grandpa, has treated me more like family than you or your family in a very long time. If it’s okay with you, can I live here?”

And then we hugged.

And just like that, like the inside of a lava cake, My heart melted.

Next up:  A move. A complete tear.