The Things We Save

The man at the door looks like Santa but with late-stage red hair and a work-stained t-shirt. He’s scruffy, weary from a morning of crummy work. He’s the guy who fixes your furnace when it dies on a winter night. The man who works outside in the mud to replace your heat pump or your air conditioner. Clearly, he’s had a tough day so far. Sorry I’m early, he says, but it’s Friday and I’m ready for this week to be over. I can see that in his eyes. The job before ours must have been a doozey, or maybe the customer was.

I take him into the kitchen. Ours is an easy job. The hood we replaced over the stove is vented to the outside. The electrician who installed it wasn’t licensed to connect the venting, so all this guy has to do is join a 5” pipe to a 7” pipe with some kind of adaptor. We both hope it’s a no-brainer. 30 minutes max.

While he gets to work in the kitchen, I eat my lunch in the next room. Twenty minutes later, he calls me in to show me what’s he’s done. He grabs his glasses from the counter, puts them on, and I can’t help smiling! This giant of a man is wearing old brown and tan frames covered in rhinestones with even more rhinestones dangling from the hinges. I tell him how fabulous they are, how great he looks, and he smiles a big, watery smile, says, they’re my mom’s. I like wearin’ ‘em. Keeps her with me.

It was a tender moment between two strangers. A sweet surprise for both of us.

---

Brent’s granddaughter made this necklace using a gold curlicue that used to be an earring of my mom’s. I remember thinking Mom was so glamorous when she wore those earrings.