Reflecting on the life of Helen Keller
Today, my friends, is an important day in history, particularly for lovers of literature. Not only is it Pen Pal Day in the US and in many other countries around the world (have you ever had a pen pal, by the way?), today marks the passing of blind and deaf American author Helen Keller who proved to the world, literally proved to the world, you can do anything you set your mind to.
About Helen Keller
Helen Keller, who was born on June 27th, 1880, suffered from Scarlet Fever when she was a toddler, an illness that ravaged her body and left her barely holding on to life, though blind and deaf.
During childhood, she was sent to a school for the blind where she was first taught by 20 year old tutor, Anne Sullivan who also suffered from severe vision problems.
As a child, Keller learned to identify objects by feeling them and then associating them with words spelled out on her palm. And if you think this is an easy feat, my friend, close your eyes and have someone write letters on your hand with their fingers. I daresay they'll be extremely difficult to identify.
Helen's first word was believed to be water, a word she learned when she was six years old.
As the story goes, Helen's tutor, Anne, took Helen to a water pump, put her hand under the spout, and as water gushed over her hand, she spelled 'w-a-t-e-r' in the other. Helen learned quickly.
When she was eight years old, she began to learn Braille and to speak. Mind you, my friends, the young lady was both deaf and blind. Can you imagine how difficult that must be when you have a limited frame of reference and no other sound to mimic?
For the next few years, Keller learned to speak and lip-read, and since she was blind, she had to place her fingers on the lips to be able to do so. Still, she never gave up. Her education continued, she attended Radcliffe College and graduated cum laude in 1904.
Helen Keller wrote many books and also lectured on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind. Back when she was young, many of the disabled were sent to asylums, but through her activism, their lives were also positively changed.
I daresay, my friends, that Helen Keller can be an inspiration to us all whenever we face hurdles that we deem to be insurmountable, and today, as we reflect on her life and legacy, I'll end with this quote which has been attributed to her: "Your success and happiness lie in you. External conditions are the accidents of life, its outer trappings. The great, enduring realities are love of service. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulty. "
I thank you for your time and attention.
Resources
Awestruck! My jaws are open. Simply thinking about how terrible the combination of being deaf and blind is. And to think she did a lot despite her situation. I'm as impressed as I am inspired.