“I’m not in the hooks anymore (as an active lineworker),” said a reluctant Michael Pacheco when asked about National Lineworker Appreciation Day on April 18. Pacheco is a Southern California Edison project general supervisor in Orange County, intent on showing deference to the lineworkers he now leads. “While I’m no longer putting myself on the line every day like the many colleagues I work with, as someone that came up through the trade, I can certainly empathize with their daily journey.”

The U.S. Congress established the day in 2013, the year after Hurricane Sandy, when lineworkers from Southern California Edison and throughout the nation helped restore power in two dozen impacted states. It recognizes the 123,000 brave men and women who ply the trade of electrical line work.

Lineworkers sometimes toil in the darkness of night to restore the light. In the daytime, they endure hours in harsh weather, tight spaces underground or alongside busy roads. It is not easy, but many lineworkers are defined by their craft, and the community around them is very close.

Pacheco oversees the work of Distribution contractors and SCE line crews while they complete thousands of operations every month. He considers linework a purpose-driven career — providing an essential service for local communities.

“There were countless evenings and weekends responding to outages,” said Pacheco. “After completing your work, you close fuses to turn the power back on. We can always count on hearing a ‘yay!’ from an open window as a family resumes its plans for a night spent together.”

Pacheco recalls customers running out of their houses to catch his crew for a wave of appreciation as they drove off to the next emergency. The gratitude is plentiful but costly.

“I don’t recall how many holidays I’ve missed. I don’t think it’s necessarily the holiday celebration that gets you,” Pacheco said. “I know for many of our people it’s more about the uniqueness of their child’s reaction to the joy of birthdays, holidays, school and sporting achievements or the celebration of a wedding anniversary.”

Sacrifice is required of loved ones as well. Pacheco knows this as the father of two young sons and as the son of a former SCE lineworker. He remembers his 74-year-old dad, Larry, missing some of his milestones. Because his father spoke to him about those absences as a very young child, Pacheco always understood the duty and purpose of his dad’s profession.

“I’ve been working really hard to try and instill the same mentality in my two sons,” said Pacheco. His older son, Ryder, 9, recently handed him a handcrafted card, a few pages of mostly legible writing.

“There were a bunch of misspelled words and some that I could barely make out,” Pacheco said. “Ryder said things like how I keep the lights on and won’t come home until the power is back on. It was really neat because of the spirit of the message. Ryder gets it.”

There is no misunderstanding of the card’s title: “The Awesomes (sic) Dad in the World!”

It took an act of Congress to establish a day to recognize lineworkers, but only the acknowledgment of a 9-year-old to touch a dad’s heart.