Sarasota, FL & Asheville, NC. – This Shabbat 24 hour pause is nothing short of a miracles. As the Sabbath began, so did our adventures. Steve and I headed to Asheville as we were guests along with the Couto family for the Autism Symposium.

The quick backstory (see Shabbat Playlist #33): Everett was a camper at Camp Arrow, a social skills/cognitive/playful camp that I co-founded with a local speech pathologist, Dawn Wildermuth, back in 2000. He was eight when we met, and learning had become challenging. Jake, our son, Erin, our daughter, Everett and his family became intertwined with ours. The relationship weaved in and out.  Several years back, Everett (19) called Jake (17) and asked to met up at the Sarasota Square mall. Everett’s parents forbade him from walking to the mall on that night. He met Jake anyway. Everett needed help. He expressed to Jake that his electronic addiction had gotten worse and triggered overt anger. Simultaneously, he had also been diagnosed with autism and bipolar disorder. The family felt desperate. Jake also had had his trials and tribulations that led him to an intervention in Costa Rica called Pure Life as he needed his own reset. Despite Jake’s many outward complaints against the program, he came back a better spirited young man. On their walk to and from the mall that night, Jake encouraged Everett to head to Aspiro in Utah for his own detox.  Jump forward two years and Sarasota Herald’s Thomas Becnel caught up with Everett and published this article: Autistic runner finds his stride for Sarasota Music Half Marathon. This article was syndicated throughout the country’s newspapers. Thus, Everett and I hit the radar of the Autism Symposium, I guess, and were invited as guests.

Dayenu! (Enough, right?) Oh there is more and on a different note – enter Noah Rudman. The quick backstory: Jake and Noah were preschool friends at Temple Emanu-El back in the day. Noah’s grandmother and grandfather and Steve and I had become very friendly and relied on each other for playdates with the boys. We eventually “fostered” him due to his grandmother’s illness. Needless to say, it was a confusing time for Noah, and probably for Erin and Jake. Fast forward – overtime we all shifted directions and eventually Noah and I were finally in touch again via phone. I caught up with him on a couple of my trips to Utah as I transported some other students in crisis. I knew it wasn’t going steadily for Noah and I knew his drug use had accelerated. Perhaps most moms would freak out about this, but from my training and experience, I know that you have to “wait for it.” The moment came and Noah dialed me up on March 28,2017. At the time, I was unaware of his real current troubles with the law, but I pushed that aside as he looked me in the eye via Facebook Messenger and enthusiastically spit out the words, “I am ready to go to rehab.” “Okay,” I responded casually. “If you are ready, then you do it my way. No arguments, no negotiations, no complaints.” He agreed. Clearly, the trouble he was in catapulted him into sobriety. I called my colleague, Susan Stader, from Next Step Recovery for Men in Asheville, N.C. and hoped she had a bed. “Yes, Amy, just get him here.” To fly from San Franscisco, CA to Atlanta, GA is $500+, but to book a ticket from San Franscisco to Charlotte, NC is $180 one way. Noah organized his Uber pickup and got himself to the red-eye flight on April 1st – no joke. I selfishly arranged this timing as I needed to sleep and knew he would be fine flying overnight. Once he landed in Atlanta, I advised him to not get on the connecting flight as I had arranged an Uber driver, Tony, to meet him in transportation of the Atlanta airport. He and his new buddy drove two hours to Asheville. It was efficient and economical. Tony could not have been more suited. As he explained to us, “When you drive with Tony, you talk with Tony!” From Noah’s perspective the guy talked too much. From our perspective, it was just right.

In the meantime, we knew Noah came only with a backpack, so we outfitted him with a shop at Plato’s closet; we nourished him with a shop at the local grocery stores, and organized him with a shop at Target. It was an awkward meeting as the last time Steve, Noah and I were together was in Asheville when he was nine years old and we adventured with his grandfather to Murphy, NC.

It was extraordinary. Because of the adventures of Jake that led to the journeys of Everett, we were in the right place at the right time for Noah. There are many transitional living programs to choose from in this country, but I happened to choose this one for Noah because I knew an inpatient or half-way house didn’t fit his needs at that moment. So there were all were – together.

But wait there is more. Two years ago, my Aunt Eunice Cohen (Aunt E) passed away on April 2nd, and a best friend, Darrin Baker’s daughter was born that same day. It was that day that Erin transformed into Ruby’s Aunt E. It is also my sister, Kim Falk’s, birthday. She is a drug addict. While I cannot help her, I can help Noah. To me, these are signs and thus Shabbat miracles. Make sure to keep looking for the gifts. Shabbat Shalom.