DAY 300 - INSPIRATIONAL WEDNESDAY: HELLEN KELLER AND THE MIRACLE WORKER

Day 300

"Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living."  Hellen Keller

Hellen Keller and Anne Sullivan

I remember being fascinated by the story of Hellen Keller when I was young.  I read the book and watched the film several times.  I was amazed by this woman's incredible story. And recently, my daughters watched the film "The Miracle Worker" about her life with the same fascination.

Hellen Adams Keller was born a healthy child on June 27, 1880. At the age of 19 months, she was stricken with a severe illness, which left her blind and deaf.

From that moment on, Hellen was imprisoned in a world of darkness and silence.  Unable to communicate, she became wild and unruly with little real understanding of the world around her.

When Hellen was six, her parents found her a teacher named Anne Sullivan. Anne herself had been blind, but had had an operation and had regained her sight. She understood what Helen was feeling. 

 She was trying to teach Helen the signs for the letters of the alphabet. She would "spell" the words in Helen's hand, trying to breakthrough to her.

And then, it happened.  One day Anne led Hellen to the water pump and pumped water on her hand. She spelled the letters W-A-T-E-R as the water ran over Hellen's hand. She did this over and over again. At last it dawned on Hellen that the word "water" meant the water, which she felt pouring over her hand. This opened up a whole new world for her. She ran everywhere asking Anne the name of different things and Anne would spell the words in her hand. This was the key, which unlocked the world for her.

After Hellen's miraculous breakthrough at the well pump, she proved so gifted that she soon learned the fingertip alphabet and shortly afterward she learned how to write. By the end of August, in six short months, she knew 625 words.

Hellen Keller

By age 10, Hellen had mastered Braille as well as the manual alphabet and even learned to use the typewriter. By the time she was 16, Helen could speak well enough to go to preparatory school and to college. In 1904 she was graduated "cum laude" from Radcliffe College. Anne Sullivan, her  teacher stayed with her through those years, interpreting lectures and class discussions to her.

Hellen Keller dedicated her life to improving the conditions of the blind and the deaf-blind around the world, lecturing in more than 25 countries on the five major continents. Wherever she appeared, she brought new courage to millions of people.

Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, is remembered as "the Miracle Worker" for her lifetime dedication, patience and love to a child who was trapped in a world of silence and darkness.

Throughout her life, Hellen Keller showed courage, determination, generosity and wisdom.  She defied the laws of nature by proving that without eyes to see or ears to hear, one could spread love, kindness,  hope and live a happy life!

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."

"No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it."

"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui."

Hellen Keller

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