Two nights

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my son moved into his girlfriend's parents' house the other day.

On Sunday I went to the sober living house with him and helped him pack up his possessions. (Observation: He sure accumulated a lot of stuff over the 10 months he was there!) We then brought his things to our house and sorted out what was going with him and what would be stored at our house. Then my wife took him out to his new temporary home.

Everyone felt good about the whole situation. The two best parts of the day? 1.) The sober living house owner wasn't around when we were there, so there wasn't any kind of confrontation or lecture from him. And 2.) On the drive back from the sober living house my son thanked me for helping him (always nice to hear unsolicited thank-yous!).

Then later Sunday night, my wife got a text from our son. He asked if he could possibly stay at our house on Monday and Tuesday nights. When my wife told me this, I immediately thought, "WTF?" She explained that the reasoning behind the question was this: Our son was scheduled to work 3:00pm to 8:00pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get a ride to work. Given that the store he works at is less than a mile from our house, staying with us would be much more convenient.

I have to admit that the question came as a big shock to me. Just days earlier my wife and I had agonized over a decision and agreed not to let our son come back home. Now he was asking to come and stay with us. Sure, it would only be for two nights...but still.

After discussing it for a while, my wife and I actually made the crazy decision to say yes. (I know. Probably not what you expected.)

I won't go into too much detail, but we couldn't be happier with the choice we made. For the two nights and two days he was here, our son was a different person than we were used to having around. He was calm, pleasant, helpful, and had conversations with us. Hell, he even sat and watched TV with us! And both nights he was here, he went to bed at a normal time. Even more amazing? He got up by 10:00am both days. Back in the day, he would've been up 'til 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and slept until 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening. He has definitely changed. And matured.

When he got off work last night and came by to get his stuff so he could go back to his girlfriend's house, I actually felt a little sad. It was really great having our son back in the house for two nights. About 20 minutes after he left, I turned to my wife and actually said, "I miss him."

I still think the decision we made to not let our son move back into our house was the right one. But I will say that I remain open to having him stay here on occasion if he needs to. It was a joy to have him around, even if it was just for a couple of nights/days. The growth we saw was amazing.

Two nights: Not much time in the grand scheme of things, but enough time to see that our son appears to be on the right path. Here's hoping it continues.

P.S. For a while now I've been thinking about having my lovely wife do a guest blog post. She is such a wonderful human being and, without a doubt, my "rock." Honestly, I don't know where I would be today without her in my life. If you all would like to see a guest blog from this incredible lady, let me know by leaving a comment. It might help me convince her to do it!