English: Mother’s Day card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Mother’s Day started at 3:41 am. “Eric, the air conditioner isn’t blowing cold air.” Jen and I get up. We walk through the house. I fumble with the thermostat. Jen checks outside to see if the unit is freezing (that happened a few years ago). We don’t find anything wrong.
I’m tired and frustrated. “What am I supposed to do to fix this at 3:41 am?”, I think to myself. My lack of HVAC competency increases my irritability. Latent insecurity belies a lousy attitude. Powerless to resolve the situation, we go back to bed.
We wake. The AC is still not cold. “Eric, it’s still 77 degrees in here.” I begin the journey of finding an HVAC company I can trust. After Googling and Yelping, I hold my breathe and make the call. They can come when we’d be at church. Jen takes the kids to church by herself. I meet with the technician. Any hope of a normal Mother’s Day is blown. Brunch is out the window. I didn’t have anything special planned. I would have come up with something better than this.
The technician arrives. He checks the unit. “There’s no power.” I roll my eyes realizing I didn’t check the breaker before calling. The breaker is tripped. I reset it. The unit comes on. The technician and I are relieved. We think this visit will be short. He starts telling me the things I can do to extend the life of the unit. The unit stops 3 minutes into his talk. “That’s not right.”, he says. 20 minutes later we have a new verdict. The compressor is over amping (pulling too much power). Our AC is four years old. The repair will be $1750 – warranty covers the failed part but not the labor and other repair materials.
My wife comes home from church. The sermon was about purpose. Our purpose is to be graceful to everyone, even in the most challenging of times. Jen takes the word to heart. Grace is good. It invites patience. It encourages positive outcomes by freeing others from judgment.
Jen gets as many fans as she can. She distributes the fans throughout the house. Normally, I get annoyed by the whir of a fan motor or the sound of the blades beating the air. Today, I’m grateful we’re dealing gracefully with 90+ degree Texas Spring day. Grace frees me from judgment. My latent insecurities grow slack. The softening steam of grace and the temperature in our home relaxing them.
The rest of the day is relaxed. I plant flowers with Evie. Evie and I wash Jen’s car. Jen hangs with the girls while I work on our property tax protest. I play with the girls, building things with an electrical circuit kit and make jewelry with beads and string.
It’s hot inside. The pace is slower. The day feels calmer and more settled with the windows open, fans blowing and the heat resting upon us.
I realize the perfect Mother’s Day gift. “Jen, how about we go out to eat somewhere air conditioned?” She names the place. El Vecino, The Neighbor. We take the girls. Jen has a tangy, blood orange margarita. The girls get churros. I enjoy 3/4 of a gallon of icy Diet Coke. We head home. The fans are rearranged to help us keep comfortable through the night, hopefully, asleep.
The heat can bring out the worst in people. Riots happen in the heat. Today was different. The heat brought us to a place of acceptance. We didn’t fight it. We didn’t get angry about it. It was a productive day despite the disruptions (AC issue, Jen’s headlight went out, the Roku stopped working). By the end of the day, I filed our property tax protest, fixed the headlight, ordered, received and installed the new Roku. Yes, these are all first world problems.
I’m grateful for the many luxuries my family enjoys. I’m more grateful for the power of grace when the luxuries are removed from our grasp. Grace gives life. Grace makes for a Happy Mother’s Day.
I am blessed to have a graceful, patient and strong wife who’s a great mom to our sweet girls. Thank you for being you, angel.
