“I’ve never seen the grill like that.”

I looked up from the pile of parts spread across the patio.

The front panel was off. The grates were out. The heat deflectors were stacked to the side. My grill looked less like a grill and more like a science experiment.

A few weeks ago, it stopped heating to a usable temperature. I called a repair service. They never called me back.

So I did the next best thing: I asked Copilot.

After some troubleshooting, it suggested the burner tubes were the culprit. Sure enough, one was so corroded that it developed a giant hole while I was trying to clean it.

I had taken the grill apart once before, so I knew I could do it. I just needed the time, patience, and mental space.

Today was finally the day.

And if you’ve ever met me, you know why that mattered.

I am firmly in the camp of “fix it if you can.”

My parents raised me to troubleshoot first and replace second. Why spend hundreds of dollars on something that can be repaired with a little research, a replacement part, and some persistence?

Years ago, when my daughter was little, I was loading 2x4s into my car in the Home Depot parking lot while she sat buckled into her car seat.

As I wrestled the lumber into the trunk, I said, mostly to myself, “Never wait for a man to do that which you can do yourself.”

A guy walking by overheard me.

“I guess I shouldn’t offer to take your cart then?” he said.

We both laughed.

But underneath the joke was something I genuinely believed. Not that you should never accept help. Just that you shouldn’t assume you can’t do something before you’ve tried.

Back on the patio, my son was sitting outside doing math review and enjoying the sunshine while I worked on the grill.

“I’ve never seen the grill like that,” he said.

At first, it felt like a throwaway observation.

But later I realized it wasn’t.

To him, taking something apart to figure out what’s wrong isn’t unusual. Trying to repair something before replacing it isn’t unusual. Looking up how to solve a problem and giving it a shot isn’t unusual.

It’s normal.

Because it’s what he’s seen his whole life.

We spend a lot of time wondering whether our kids are listening to us.

Most of the time, they’re watching us instead.

And sometimes, without realizing it, they’re learning lessons we never explicitly taught.

Not from what we said.

From what we did.