A long time ago, I leaped for joy.

Upon my move to my current town, I was so excited when we bought our house, I jumped up and down so hard there was a pop and a buckle. My right leg bent in such a way that a leg should not bend.

Did you ever play with a Barbie Doll and bend its legs at the knee in wrong way?

Yeah, like that.

I thought at the time it was a temporary thing.  That a few weeks of rest, and then a few weeks of physical therapy, I’d be over it. 

That was not the case. 

My family made the big decision to welcome Jonah to live with us in his final months before college starting in early April, right after Passover. He headed to a country cottage with friends for spring break, and we headed to our family to New York for Seder and a bite of the Big Apple.

There were just a few things I wanted to have in order at home before Jonah moved in. My oldest son agreed that he would give up his room and sleep in the basement for the summer. He was a college man now. He didn’t mind. He liked the privacy. He had the whole basement to spread out, be close to his instruments … access to the TV all night….

So I cleared out drawers and one of our double closets to make room.

Jonah said no worries, he didn’t have much stuff anyway.

I made room in our home. We all did.

Another thing I wanted to happen was to fix the shower in the kids’ bathroom. 

Right before we headed to New York, Elias came to me one morning with a metal rod.

“Hey mom, was this supposed to come out of the tub?  Because now the shower won’t work.”

A call to a plumber, a wrong part ordered, and I realized I was not going to have the shower fixed before Jonah’s move in date.

So, for about a week after he moved in, until we finally ordered the right part and then instructed people that you have to GENTLY pull the lever to change the water flow from the tub to the shower, we all shared the same shower in our master bedroom suite.

First world problem, I know, but it was instant family bonding with me hiding under my covers in bed as the three men in my house took turns ducking in and out of a very busy bathroom before sunrise.

More on that first week later.

First, let’s move Jonah in.

On a sunny morning in April I drove across town to the home where Jonah had lived since October when he turned 18. 

The SUV was empty. I folded the seats down to make room for his stuff, which he said he didn’t have a lot of. 

I made room.

He greeted me happily at the door. I was excited. Nervous. I think so was he.

The only others in the house was a large (friendly) dog in a crate, and a cleaning person.

No one to help him with his stuff.

No one to see him off.

To say goodbye.

I thought it odd, but Jonah said he had a nice goodbye dinner with his host family the night before and everyone was at school or work.

So, we began to move his stuff into my car.

He had already transferred most of it to the downstairs living room to save us some flights, but there was some more clothes upstairs in the room he stayed in.

A few boxes of books.

Some childhood mementos. Stuffed animals. Yearbooks from middle school. I think some photo albums.

And lots of clothes.

Up and down and up and down the uncarpeted stairs we went until everything he owned fit in the back of my SUV.

“Are you a little sad?”

“No, not at all,” he answered. “I’m very happy. The M’s were good people and we had a nice conversation last night. I’m just excited.”

Okay, I thought. I wondered, was this family going to miss him, now that he was moving out? Would they keep in touch?

After we closed the hatch, we were off.

Then, a bit of an awkward silence.

I mean, I think most teens do not have much to say to the parents of their friends. I mean, as adults, we are hardly human. I remember being completely uncomfortable around the parents of my friends.

But this was the beginning of an arrangement that was completely different from most teens have with most of their friends’ parents. If he wanted us to help him, we were going to have to accelerate this get to know each process, he would have to trust us, and with his background, trust was something that would be hard to win.

So we sat in silence and drove.

And he..  he did this thing, this quirk that would become endearing to me at times when he didn’t know what to say.

He clucked his tongue, alternatively with humming a tune. Not that I minded. The kid could sing. He is a born crooner that always reminded me of a throwback from a different age.  He sang and hummed all the time, while doing the dishes after dinner, folding his laundry in his room, sometimes doing his homework, all the time in the shower… those were the good memories.

So..  we were on our way to his new home but first, a stop to the records office at the high school.

My first line of business with him was to make sure he had a check up before college, and for that, we needed his immunization records, if he had any, and we needed to figure out health insurance eligibility.

He had taken the day off. Second semester high school senior. Into his three top choices for college. We both figured that getting other parts of his life in order, like his financials and establishing health insurance, etc, took priority over sitting in class.

There was still silence in the car, so, I took a breath and broke it.

“You know, Jonah, I really don’t know what I am doing. And I’m going to make mistakes with you, probably lots of them. ”

He nodded in understanding.

“And I’m not a social worker. I’m just a mom who cares for her children, and you are a good friend to one of my children who needs some help. I’m just going with my heart here, okay?”

Okay, he said.

We pulled up to the high school and in about 20 minutes he emerged, his immunization records in hand.  That was easy.

First step accomplished. First of many.

Then we drove home and unpacked.

That was a Tuesday.

After a week on the road to see family and then a day of moving Jonah out of one home and into another, my body and soul were in serious need of me time.

Me time would be the next day at Yoga.

I couldn’t wait.