Following Ezra (28 page)

Yet there is something more than vicarious stage fright fueling my growing disquiet. In fact, Ezra’s behavior can be so erratic that I feel certain he will surprise us in unforeseen ways when the day comes. Shawn and I have both assured Ezra that we will be proud of him no matter what happens—just for the efforts he has made.

What worries me is that Ezra won’t show up. I am concerned that he will be physically at the synagogue, but that he won’t be psychologically
present.
Even at thirteen, my son still spends so much of his day lost in his thoughts, focusing his mind’s eye on the movies running in his head, that he often appears to miss what is transpiring in the real world directly around him. I tried to help eliminate some of his mental distractions when I showed him how to remove his obsessive thoughts about the gifts. Still, I worry that his bar mitzvah might turn into another version of his third birthday party, that morning a decade earlier when I found him in his bedroom conversing with Tigger, while the other toddlers played party games downstairs.

That is the concern that plays through my mind over and over as the day of Ezra’s bar mitzvah nears: Will he show up?

 

 

I get the answer the instant I am awakened that Saturday morning. Sunlight is just creeping into our bedroom window when I feel the familiar sensation of the house vibrating and then hear the doorknob turn as Ezra dashes into our bedroom.

“It’s the day of my bar mitzvah!” he is shouting over and over. Then louder:
“It’s the day of my bar mitzvah!”
He is filled with unrestrained glee, greeting the day just as he celebrates the first day of every month, just as he marks the coming of each season, just as he leaps from bed when the long-awaited opening of a new animated movie arrives. He can hardly contain his zeal.

As quickly as he appeared, he disappears out the door. Shawn and I smile at each other, easing back into the bed until just a few minutes later, when Ezra bursts through the door again, already dressed in his gray suit pants, black dress shoes, and a crisp white shirt he is struggling to button at the cuffs.

It’s six a.m. Three hours before we need to leave.

By the time we are close to the synagogue three hours later, Ezra’s energy is reaching a crescendo. Always a fast walker, he is striding with determination half a block ahead of the rest of our family, dressed in his handsome dark gray suit, the familiar heavy red backpack full of his books strapped to his shoulders.

“You think he’s nervous?” Ami asks.

“Excited,” I say. “I don’t think he gets nervous.”

That is obvious the moment we arrive at the synagogue. Hundreds of times over the years, Ezra has walked through this same doorway, eyes to the floor or staring off, oblivious to the volunteers offering greetings as they extend their hands in welcome. Today, Ezra does something he has never done: Unprompted, he eagerly greets everyone in sight—an elderly lady applying rouge in the lobby, an early-arriving uncle, the security guard.

“Thank you!” he replies with exaggerated affect as they offer congratulations. “Thank you for
coming
!”

We make our way to the chapel. Only a handful of congregants have arrived as Shawn and I begin settling into a front pew—the special one for bar mitzvah families. Ezra won’t sit, instead standing on tiptoe and peering around the room eagerly.

When I finally persuade him to sit, I unzip his backpack—almost from habit—and pull out one of the animal encyclopedias. I figure the distraction is the only guarantee to anchor him in place for the morning.

“Want to look at your book?” I ask him.

“No,” he says, pushing my hand away. “I just want to look at my
bar mitzvah
.”

He watches the stream of congregants and guests filing in through a rear door. Suddenly, he steps over me and then his brothers and out to the aisle. Shawn and I exchange a look.
Oh, no.
I assume this is his moment to flee for the lobby. Instead, he runs up to my uncle Les, who is in for the occasion from the East Coast. Ezra reaches for Les’s hand and pumps it, smiling broadly and then moving on to the next person.

I just want to look at my bar mitzvah.
Those words echo in my mind as the preliminary parts of the service begin and I watch Ezra make his way from one congregant to the next, smiling, chatting, receiving hugs and kisses.

“Thank you!” he keeps saying to each person, with that same awkwardly high volume and strong emphasis. “Thank you for
coming
!”

Watching him work the crowd—shaking hands and accepting kisses with only minimal fuss—I call to mind the little boy who wandered around his preschool classroom seeming to occupy his own world, a child so unmindful of other human beings that he would stumble into the other toddlers, not perceiving their existence. I think of the Ezra who once seemed incapable of looking me in the eye, who paced alone on the playground, whose mother wondered if he would ever say the words
I love you.

Now that boy stands in his suit, fire-engine red bow tie, white knit yarmulke, and wire-framed glasses, smiling, confident, making his way through the carpeted aisles of the synagogue, warmly receiving each new face he encounters. He is the same Ezra—with his distinctive, awkward posture and the way he holds his long arms at his sides or tightly crossed on his chest—but he is soaking up the attention and the moment.

Eventually we are able to lure Ezra back to our row, where he takes a place to my right, with Shawn on his other side. Noam and Ami are beside us. Behind us sit our four parents—Ezra’s grandparents—and our siblings, together with their own children. As the service proceeds, the rows behind us steadily fill until the chapel is far exceeding its capacity of more than three hundred: counselors from his summer camp, teachers from his school, neighbors and cousins and therapists. Still more file in as the prayers progress: invited guests, regular congregants, and curious onlookers dropping in from the synagogue’s other Shabbat services stand shoulder-to-shoulder along the walls.

A moment before Ezra is to ascend to the podium to begin his part of the service, I extend an arm around his shoulders and look him over. My worry once was that he would not be able to arrive at this day with appropriate presence of mind. But he is here. Ezra is present in full force, in a way I have never seen, a way I have never imagined.

That becomes even clearer a few minutes later, when Shawn and I stand behind him as our family follows the Torah scroll in a processional through the aisles of the chapel. I watch Ezra extending his hand to greet one guest after another by name, with enthusiasm and delight. It seems he is connected to every soul in the room.

When it is time for him to chant his Torah reading, Ezra stands at the bimah and says the Hebrew blessings. Shawn and I stand on one side of him. He holds a silver Torah pointer, glances at the parchment Torah scroll laid out in front of him, and launches into chanting the seven biblical verses he has learned with Shawn over these many months. His chanting is flawless, confident and strong. When the pointer in his hand strays from the Hebrew words as he chants, Shawn tries to steer his hand back toward the correct place in the text, but Ezra stubbornly resists, pulling his hand away from hers, proceeding without hesitation through the biblical passage. It’s as if he needs to make a statement:
You helped me to get here, but I’m going to do this on my own.
His eyes don’t appear to be focusing on the scroll; his gaze seems to be on the hundreds of people gathered around him at that moment. (A friend in the congregation later describes it this way: Ezra wasn’t reciting the words from the scroll or from memory, but rather from a Torah that seemed to exist in his mind.)

When he finishes, dozens of men and women suddenly emerge from their seats, join hands, and dance a hora around Ezra, who stands between Shawn and me, a radiant smile spreading across his face, showing joy, surprise, and relief all at once.

A few minutes later, he steps back up to the podium, takes an exaggerated, deep breath, and launches into his speech, the one he has written, with my support, over our walks and tag-team sessions passing the laptop:

When he finishes, the congregation greets him with spontaneous applause and cheers—not common reactions in synagogue on Shabbat morning, but people can’t restrain their emotions. Many are wiping away tears. I hold Shawn’s hand and choke up. It isn’t so much the words as the way he said them that has created a transcendent moment. His sweetness, the awkward way he emphasized words, his unfiltered and unrestrained enthusiasm—these reveal a genuine quality in Ezra one rarely experiences in teenagers or, really, in anyone.

Shawn and I step to the podium and stand on either side of our son to share our own thoughts for the occasion. Shawn talks about his name, Ezra Moshe, and how it is all about the Torah: His middle name is Moshe, Hebrew for Moses, who received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Ezra, the Hebrew prophet, was reputed to have written it all down. She talks about the part of the day’s Torah portion Ezra opted not to discuss, the passage detailing skin disorders among ancient Israelite priests.