Sometimes, even the people closest to us are silently struggling with an invisible issue. But the more we open up and normalize real problems, the easier they are to tackle. Such was the case for one married couple, in which the husband was secretly facing his fears and bettering his life.
A Threads account called Global Echoes shares a tale from a person identified only as “Faye from Missouri.” It’s part of the Story Plugs project, “The Kindness Diary,” in which people from around the world share real, uplifting stories to inspire others.
Secret revealed
Although “Faye” hasn’t been independently verified, the account claims the stories are submitted by real people. In one especially touching entry, “Faye” recounted the time she feared the worst about her marriage:
“My husband’s phone buzzed on the counter with a text that said ‘Same time tomorrow? Don’t tell anyone.’ A second text. A heart. From a name I didn’t recognize, saved with no last name. Twenty-two years of marriage and I stood in my kitchen feeling the floor tilt. Didn’t confront him. I did worse. I followed him the next afternoon when he said he was running to the dump. He drove to the elementary school. Parked. Went inside.
And I sat in my car in the visitor lot inventing horrors until I finally marched in after him and had the front office page him, heart pounding, ready for anything. He came around the corner holding a first-grade reading book. Behind him came a small boy, maybe six, clutching a sticker chart. My husband went white when he saw me, then red, then he introduced me. The boy is in the reading recovery program.
My husband, who I’ve watched struggle to read a menu aloud our entire marriage, who orders ‘what he’s having’ in restaurants, who our kids never once saw read a bedtime story, has been secretly enrolled in an adult literacy program at the library for a year. A year. And when he got good enough, they matched him as a reading buddy with this little boy, because the program believes kids try harder for someone who’s climbing the same hill. The text was from the boy’s teacher.
The secrecy was fifty-two years of shame I never knew the size of. He read to me that night. Out loud, at the kitchen table, from our daughter’s old copy of Charlotte’s Web, slow and careful, and I have never loved him more than at the words ‘Where’s Papa going with that ax.’ He didn’t stumble once.”
Commenters under the post were deeply moved by his vulnerability. One Threader wrote, “Twenty-two years of marriage, and she was ready to catch him having an affair. But what she actually caught him doing was the bravest, most vulnerable thing he’d ever done.”
Adult illiteracy
Adult illiteracy is much more common in the United States than many people realize. According to one recent study, well over 100 million adults read below a sixth-grade level. National University reports, “About 130 million U.S. adults (54% of those aged 16–74) read below a sixth-grade level, according to modeled estimates.”
According to research posted on the U.S. Department of Education’s site:
“PIAAC (Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) defines literacy as ‘the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.’
“They divide participants into levels and explain that they take into account people who were not born in the States or had English as their first language. That said, the site claims that “U.S.-born adults make up two-thirds of adults with low levels of English literacy skills in the United States.”
Help and resources
There are resources—and hope—for those who want to improve their reading and comprehension skills, like the husband in the story. The Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL), like many libraries around the country, offers literacy classes both online and in person.
“Every day, for 40 years, we have helped adults just like you meet their literacy goals,” the LAPL shared. “Some goals include learning to vote, reading a newspaper, helping children with homework, using a computer, and getting a better job.”
