Jefferson: Dead or Alive?

My son, Thomas, has the gift of being a voracious reader. The fact is that all of my children (at least those who have learned to read) enjoy spending extended periods of time reading for pleasure. As long as there is not a test or written report required to measure their reading comprehension afterwards, they derive peaceful pleasure from exercising their imaginations with a good book. While we as parents have modeled reading for pleasure and enjoy a Saturday visit to the library, their love of books must also have a genetic component to run so deep in their personalities.

Thomas always reads for at least 10 minutes, usually longer, every night before bedtime. One night when he was about 8 years old, I passed by his open bedroom door. He was sitting on his bed, propped up with that evening’s selection, a biography on the life of Thomas Jefferson – inventor, writer, patriot, president. I was proud of his choice of historical non-fiction for pleasure reading – like father, like son.

Thomas, on this occasion, was crying – really sobbing. Red eyes, tear-stained cheeks, and the intermittent heaving chest gasping for more air. To say that I was caught off guard would be an understatement. For a moment, witnessing such a dramatic, emotional display was scary for me. What could have happened to my innocent boy to evoke such an outpouring? School bullying? Teacher reprimand at school? Guilty feelings about who-knows-what?

“Thomas, buddy, what’s the matter?” I tried to be calming, while inside I was preparing myself for any situation that he might share. I was ready to lift his burden, solve his problem, be the pillar of strength that a vulnerable boy needs.

He didn’t hold back. “I was reading about…Thomas…Jefferson,” he forces out through the tears and the overused Kleenex. His face was spotted red and his eyelashes were stuck together. He was, in a word, a mess.

“I didn’t know that he died at the end of the story.”

His cries came rushing out now, freed of this terrible news. I did the only thing I could do in the situation. I hugged him close, told him that everything was going to be OK, and snuck his copy of Ben Franklin’s biography under my arm and out of his room.