In 2021, at 42, he still read at the level of a four-year-old. The scene plays out at the supermarket, on an ordinary day. For twenty-five years, he had worked and raised a family without reading or writing, supported by his wife. Lockdown, and their 10-year-old son, brought the turning point: it was time to learn, at last.
What turned his life upside down, that day at the supermarket?
Learning to read at 42 means giving yourself permission to start over, and to look your son in the eye and tell him that you, too, are moving forward, at your own pace.
In 2021, at 42, she still read at the level of a four-year-old. It wasn't an abstract statistic she stumbled on: it was an ordinary scene at the supermarket that put it brutally before her eyes. No dramatic retelling, just that everyday moment when something, at last, revealed itself to her.
That day, the crisis she lived through between the aisles acted as a spark rather than a shock. She realised something essential was missing from her life, and that this absence had a name: learning to read and write.
What was life like before, without being able to read or write?
For twenty-five years, he worked, got married and raised a family, without ever learning to read or write. That daily life held together through meticulous planning, worked out in advance to get around every obstacle involving the written word.
In this life built one day at a time, his wife played a central role: by his side, she helped him navigate a world that constantly demanded reading and writing. Between them, a silent closeness, woven from trust.
Why did lockdown bring everything to a head?
During the lockdowns, everything changed. The well-ordered routine of this truck driver came to an abrupt halt, and the world, he says, turned upside down.
In this household suddenly brought to a standstill, his wife was home-schooling their 10-year-old son. He stood to one side, ashamed that he couldn’t help, his work as a truck driver on hold. That quiet but persistent shame eventually became the turning point he had been waiting for, without knowing it.
What remains, in the end, of this story that began between two supermarket aisles, is the quiet proof that there’s no age limit for learning to read and write. The shame he felt in front of his son, that day of lockdown, didn’t have the last word: it turned into momentum, carried by his wife’s closeness and by the desire, at last, to no longer stand apart. Learning to read at 42 means giving yourself permission to start over, and to look your son in the eye and tell him that you, too, are moving forward, at your own pace.
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