Behind the public man, there often is a father

Behind every public man or woman, there usually is a father or a mother. While the public renders its judgement, but their child or children render their own judgement. The attached is about president Abraham Lincoln and his son’s relationship, I copied from the internet.

Abraham Lincoln’s youngest son, Thomas, was known to everyone as “Tad” — a nickname his father gave him because, as a baby, he wriggled and squirmed like a tadpole. Born in 1853, Tad grew up in a household where laughter and sorrow lived side by side. His older brother Willie was his closest companion, and the White House, during the Civil War, became their playground. Tad was energetic, affectionate, and famously unpredictable. He burst into Cabinet meetings, kept pet goats on the White House lawn, and had a habit of tearing through the halls with the freedom only a child can manage.

Lincoln, buried in the weight of the war and the loss of countless lives, softened around Tad. The boy’s mischief was one of the few things that could pull a smile from him. Their bond grew even stronger after Willie died of illness in 1862. Willie’s death crushed the family, and Tad, who also fell sick at the time, leaned on his father for comfort. Lincoln, in the midst of national grief, held his surviving son close, sometimes letting him sleep curled up in his office just to keep him near.

To the public, Lincoln was a president. To Tad, he was simply “Papa.” They ate meals together when schedules allowed, took evening walks, and shared private jokes. During the war, Tad often followed his father everywhere, tagging along to the War Department or stretching out on the floor while Lincoln worked late into the night.

When Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Tad was just twelve. He reportedly cried, “Pa is dead,” again and again, struggling to understand how the world could continue without the man who had been his anchor. After the assassination, Tad and his mother traveled the world for a time, but the light that had filled him as a boy never fully returned. He died in 1871 at the age of eighteen, likely from illness, leaving behind a brief life marked by love, loss, and the shadow of history.

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