ALMOST A MAN

It’s already getting dark outside. When I peek at him from my living room window, he’s cloaked in long shadows, and from his silhouette alone, I might have mistaken him for a man.

Neatly pressed suit.

Neatly combed hair.

Straight shoulders that announce he’s ready to take on the world.

I suddenly feel uncharacteristically sentimental.

Where have the years gone?

How can this almost-adult be my child?

With a lump in my throat, I flip on the outside light, so he doesn’t have to wait for his ride in the dark. He turns to face me, and – BOOM – I remember who I am dealing with.

Sentimental feelings quickly turn to panic.

Almost adult or not, my mother-radar beeps frantically: He’s going to a bar mitzvah looking like that?

Half his shirt hangs out of his pants and the other half is tucked haphazardly under his belt.

His tie is more than slightly askew.

And, maybe I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I’m this close to spitting on my fingers and wiping away the remnants of his lunch that are still on his cheeks, even though he supposedly took a shower. (Is there a statute of limitations for how long we are allowed to spit-clean our children’s faces?)

But before I can reach him and insist that he make himself presentable before leaving the house, a car honks urgently. Grateful for the reprieve, my son jumps from his perch, and I can only call out helplessly from behind him:

“Don’t be too wild!”

“Remember to say thank you to Mrs. Klein for driving you!”

He rolls his eyes (yes – I can see you even in the dark!) and waves as he ducks into the car. He slams the door as quickly as he can, so none of his friends will be able to hear his mother’s embarrassing reminders.

Oy.

He’s right.

I am embarrassing. 

My gap-toothed and cowlicked son is almost bar mitzvah, and I speak to him like he is still a child. No – I treat him like he’s still a child.

Sooner or later, ready or not, I’m going to have to admit to myself that the little guy who was just learning to walk and who was just throwing meatballs around my kitchen (okay, that’s more recent than I’d like to disclose) – that little guy is actually not so little anymore.

He is almost a man – at least according to halachah – and I might need to start treating him as one.

But what if I’m not ready?

What if he’s not ready?

His bar mitzvah is a few months away, and I’m hoping and praying that those few months are going to involve his maturing at warped speed. 

Like 0-to-100 speed. 

Like faster-than-the-speed-of-light speed.

Because I love the kid to pieces, but it’s hard to fathom that he’ll soon be ready to fill a hat, complete a minyan, and fulfill all the mitzvos – when he still needs reminders to take his half-eaten lunches out of his knapsack or to use soap and shampoo when he showers.

Let’s just say he’s still got a lot of growing up to do.

Somehow, back when this guy was a toddler, I didn’t imagine that when he would be counted in a mezumin, he would still be picking fights with his younger sister, just for the sake of picking fights.

Or that he’d still be leaving his dirty laundry at the sides of his bed, or leaving his dirty plate on the supper table, or finding brushing his teeth to be a punishment worse than taking out the garbage.  

Is this a generational thing? Because I have a brother a few years older than I am, and when he and his friends reached bar mitzvah, I thought they were huge.

To my younger self, the bar mitzvah boys back then had an air of cool about them, a maturity and confidence they oozed when they donned their davening jackets and climbed on the minyan bus.

Did they also leave their laundry at the sides of their beds?

Did their mothers also worry that they would never stop finding whooping cushions funny?

Did their mothers also wonder if they’d ever truly grow up?

Just as I begin fretting that I might im yirtza Hashem walk my son down to his chuppah wondering if he remembered to brush his teeth, I think about a book I just finished reading.

It was a Holocaust memoir written by my husband’s relative who passed away a few years ago.

In the book, my husband’s relative terrifyingly recounts the horrors he witnessed and the innumerable miracles he experienced.

But in the very first chapter, there was also a bit of comic relief.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I read his recollections of going away to yeshivah for the first time, soon after his bar mitzvah, a few years before the war broke out.

He was miserable.

He missed his mother’s homemade food.

He missed quibbling with his siblings – his sisters included.

He hated the dorm room – he found the beds uncomfortable and the room too cold – and he didn’t like that he had to deal with own laundry.

All he wanted was to go home to his mother, so she could take care of all his responsibilities.

Okay. 

Phew. 

Even those boys in the alter heim, the ones with mature eyes and barely a hint of a smile in their black-and-white portraits, even they were still boys after the ripe old age of bar mitzvah.

That means there’s hope for my not-so-little-guy, even if he still thinks putting laundry into the hamper is a form of Chinese water torture, and even if he thinks sticking straws up his nose is comic genius.

Maybe age 13 is not the line in the sand where a young lad instantly becomes a man. Maybe it’s the beginning of a new stage, when my not-yet-big-guy starts taking baby steps toward manhood. 

So, when my almost-adult son returns later from his classmate’s bar mitzvah, I am waiting for him.

His shirt is still tucked out – and it’s a whole lot sweatier than it was when he left.

Plus, I’m almost one-hundred percent sure he has franks-n-blanks and mini knishes stashed away in his pockets for midnight snacks.

But I bite my tongue.

He’s almost a man.

He’ll figure out that’s gross eventually, right?

I want to ask: Did you behave? Did you wish your friend’s parents mazel tov? Were you gracious to the waiters?

Instead, I call out, “How was the bar mitzvah, kiddo?”

His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are bright.

“It was awesome, Ma,” he calls back.

“That’s great,” I answer, thinking for a second that maybe he does look a little older now. 

Maybe a teeny bit taller. 

Maybe a tad bit more mature.

As he heads to his room, just because bad habits are hard to break, I call out, “Remember to brush your teeth.”

He rolls his eyes.

 “Goodnight, Ma.”

I can’t help but smile.

Boys will be boys – even as they are transitioning to be men. 

And boys need their mothers to let them grow up at their own pace – difficult for us as that may be.

I guess we just need to grow as they do.