Seeing With Your
Heart
I do not
remember when I first realized that I was different from other people….
Everyone
knows the story of Helen Keller’s life, at least the story of her early
life. She was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama
on June 27, 1880 a perfectly normal child. She was very bright and had even started
speaking by six months. But at the age of nineteen months, she contracted an
illness that left her deaf and blind plunging her into darkness and
silence.
Helen
grew into a wild thing, terrorizing her household with her tantrums. Her family
placated her because they pitied her and felt helpless. Most handicapped people
in those days lived hopeless lives in institutions. But Helen showed an
extraordinary intelligence. By the age
of five, she had invented sixty signs for communicating.
Her
parents took her to see Alexander Graham Bell who was working to develop aides
for deaf people. Helen remembered, “He
understood my signs and I knew it and loved him at once.” Graham suggested that a teacher be sent for
to help Helen. That’s when the miracle
happened.
Annie
Sullivan came to teach Helen but first she had to tame her. She understood the
Keller’s pity but knew that they were making a mistake. Helen had to behave
before she could learn. The battle began.
Annie
prevailed but Helen won. She learned to behave and through Annie’s teaching,
Helen’s dark, silent world opened wide: “My teacher… touched the darkness of my
mind and I awoke to the gladness of life.”
Helen
made enormous strides and learned to read and write and even speak. She attended Radcliffe College along with her
teacher who spelled every book and lecture into her hand. Helen graduated and went on to lecture all
over the world. She appeared in films and vaudeville. She wrote books and
became an advocate for the handicapped. She said, “… the great need of the
blind was not charity, but opportunity.” She met every President from Grover
Cleveland to John Kennedy. She became a symbol of courage and hope for the
world.
My students
were amazed by Helen’s accomplishments. They enjoyed trying to read Braille. When
Helen was asked who her favorite pal was, she replied, “ [books] they tell me
so much that is interesting about things I cannot see. And they are never troubled
or tired like people.” They were fascinated to learn that Helen could tell one
flower from another by touching the petals and smelling them. They loved that
she could feel the vibrations from a piano and touch music. She read lips and
learned geography, German and French.
She didn’t like Arithmetic. She loved to laugh.
Helen
said, “Keep your face to the sunshine.”
She never felt sorry for herself.
She said, “Life is a daring adventure.”
She did not let her circumstances decide how she would live or what she could
accomplish. She learned to read the
world, not only with her hands but with her heart. She said, “ I was dumb; now I speak. I owe this to the hands and hearts of
others.”
Helen
Keller was named one of the one hundred most influential people of the
twentieth century. She changed our
world. She opened our hearts and hands to others by her example. She lived her
life in hope so that we could too.
All quotations are from
Helen Keller by George Sullivan.
