Hands

A bit of backstory... we'd planed on moving to our new house in Copper on April 1st. A few days before we called our landlord and found out that the house wasn't ready and that he was in the hospital with internal bleeding. So all moving plans were on hold. We were disappointed for sure and even looked online to see if there was anything better that might be available right away. We did find a listing for a rental in Angels and Kris went to go take a look at it. He came right back in- the Suburban wouldn't start. Grr! Of course this was a Friday evening and it was getting dark. So my mom took us to look at the house which wouldn't have worked for our family anyways. The next day it was dumping down rain, Sunday too, so we sat all weekend without a vehicle. Meanwhile Kris spent a lot of time online researching what the car's problem might be. On Monday the weather cleared and my dad took him to the auto parts store. Grandpa let Kris use his driveway to work on the car... Kris bought a new fuel pump assembly, but after spending a couple hours getting the old one off (he had to drop the whole fuel tank which weighed about 75+ pounds) only to find out they'd given him the wrong part! It took him most of the day to get the new fuel pump on and everything back together. I kept checking on him and his morale was good. He appreciated having my Grandpa nearby for advice. Then the moment of truth arrived. He started the car and the engine roared to life. Then he put the car in gear and it died... and then wouldn't start again. By this time the sun was setting and it was time to call it a night. The next day Dad took Kris to get new spark plugs and wires and a distributor cap, which still didn't fix the problem. Finally between Kris and Grandpa they thought it might be the ignition module. Luckily Grandpa had one in his shop. The put it in and voila! The car lived again!!!

What impressed me most about the whole ordeal is that Kris will tell you that he is NOT a mechanic... not in the slightest... but he researched the problem and moved forward with the information he had... he sought advice from others like his brother and my Grandpa and my Dad who do have more experience with cars. He maintained a fantastic attitude even though it was certainly frustrating and bottom line- he got the car working again!



So here are his hands at the end of day 1:

What I love about this picture is that Kris' hands are rarely ever this dirty... but these same hands that wrenched on our beast of a car are the same hands that wipe our childrens' tears... the same hands that gently hold my face as he looks into my eyes to tell me that he loves me. And I love him so much too!