I passed the final exam after learning to read at forty

Dear Delyara, I hid poor literacy for most of my adult life. I memorized signs, avoided forms, asked my wife to “check” letters that I could barely read. At forty, I finally joined an adult literacy course after my daughter asked me to read a school letter and I pretended I had forgotten my glasses. Four years later, I have passed a Level 2 English qualification. The exam included a long passage I would once have handed to someone else immediately. I read every page myself. My daughter framed the certificate and wrote underneath, “No glasses required.” I laughed. Education has changed small things nobody sees: reading medication labels, replying to emails without copying text into a voice app, choosing books because I want them rather than because the covers look manageable. Success is not becoming clever at forty-four. I was always clever. I finally have fewer reasons to hide it.