The boy climbed onto the arm of his father’s chair. The man scooted over so the boy had a comfortable spot partly on him and partly on the chair’s arm.

Reading time. The boy held two school books. Short books. Children’s books about turtles learning life lessons and a boy who imagines the wildest things based on the stories a girl tells about the most common of things.

The boy read the stories well. Occasionally, the man had to point out a skipped word or two.

On a few occasions, the man would have to stop the boy from mispronouncing a word. Some of the boy’s pronunciations were tributes to the creativity of the human mind.

Having established the appropriate pronunciation, the boy would realize he already knew the word. It was already part of his spoken vocabulary and now he would recognize it on the page.

There is comfort in such rituals. It is why, for generations, parents have read to their children and, as their children learn to read, they read to their parents.

Comfort lies in the cadences of voices. Such readings calm the day’s troubles. They bring families together. It is why parents often read their children to sleep.

There is comfort there. Perhaps too much comfort.

At some point, usually deep within the pages of the boy’s second book, the mother would notice that the mispronounced words might go uncorrected. She would hear her son read with no word from the man.

She would walk into the room. There, she would find the boy reading from his place on his father’s chair. The man would be slumped over, in the comfort of his chair and in the company of his son, in the soothing place of his home, asleep.

That’s how the boy often came to read his father to sleep.

Dean Poling is The Valdosta Daily Times assistant managing editor.