Seeing With Your Heart

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.