Helen Keller: She Never Gave Up

Perseverance, kindness, intelligence, confidence, strength, and the ability to accomplish the impossible-these all make wonderful guidelines in the choosing of a hero.  My hero had all of these.  From the age of nineteen months Helen Keller was blind and deaf, yet she still managed to accomplish more than most seeing and hearing people do.  Helen wanted with her whole self to learn to communicate.  After she had accomplished this, Helen fought for the rights and aid of other disabled men, women and children.  But most of all, Helen Keller has inspired many around the world to fight for what they believe in and never give up, even when the odds are against them. 

Helen Keller once said, "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us," (Helen Keller).  Helen Keller herself spent six years groping for the opened door she could not find.  Seven months after her first birthday, Helen, a cheerful and playful baby, caught scarlet fever; the tiny child survived, but the sickness left her stranded in a silent and dark world, a world void of all happiness-or so it seemed to the parents of the blind and deaf infant.  Every day, for six years, Helen tried her best to break the barrier between herself and other beings, feeling the faces and movements of her family as they conversed, willing her mind to understand what they said.  When Helen could not decipher their meaning, she often became frustrated and would throw herself into violent temper tantrums, but still Helen persevered.  Several months before her seventh birthday, a teacher-Anne Sullivan-from the Perkins Institute for the blind came to teach Helen by spelling words into her hand using American Sign Language, or ASL.  Finally, after months of repeated spelling, Helen understood that she had at last found the opened door for which she had searched for so long (Spartacus Educational) (Katie).  In a newsreel from 1930, Helen's teacher describes her intelligence and eagerness: "She had no way of communicating with those around her except a few imitative signs that she had made for herself, a push meant go and a pull meant come and so on.  She had observed that we did not use the hands when we were talking to each other.  And I let her see, by putting her hand on my face, how we talk with our mouths.  She felt the vibration of the spoken word.  Instantly she spelled 'I want to talk with my mouth,'" (Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan).

          During the years following her breakthrough, Helen learned many ways to communicate including ASL, Braille, and a writing method called square hand (Helen Keller Documentary).  Her most amazing accomplishment by far, however, was Helen's learning to speak.  She did this by placing her hand on her teacher's face and feeling the vibrations of the throat with one finger, the vibrations in the nose with a second, and the movement of the mouth with a third.  Repeatedly, Anne Sullivan spoke while Helen felt, until, after the seventh lesson, Helen had spoken her first sentence: "I am not dumb now." (Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan).  As well as learning to speak English, Helen also learned to speak fluently in five other languages while at Radcliff College, from which she graduated in 1904.  Also while in college, Helen began writing one of a few books that told not only of her tribulations and trials, but also inspired those who read them to do something about others in Helen's same predicament (Spartacus Educational).  But Helen did not stop after college; her thirst for knowledge, her will, and the calling she felt God had given would not allow her to cease her work with a clean conscience.

          With the help of her teacher and friends, Helen Keller traveled the world giving lectures.  She spoke about her childhood and how frustrated she had been with the world.  She told of how, when she had finally understood that all things have a name, she soaked the information up like a little sponge.  Helen told the crowds these things and more, not for sympathy or pity, but to inspire the individuals that made up the crowds to do something about other children in the same situation Helen had found herself in.  When WWII started, Helen spoke about the soldiers disabled in battle, stirring up the sentiments of people around the world.  Helen herself visited these soldiers to encourage them, especially the ones who had been blinded or deafened in combat (Helen Keller Documentary) (Katie).  Having at last had her say in the world, Helen left this earth and on it the millions she had inspired by the miracle of her own life. 

Today, many disabled people get an education.  Our communities have schools for blind and deaf, mentally and physically challenged students.  Helen Keller did not bring all of this into our modern world, but her words and her life inspired some of it.  Throughout her life, Helen never gave up-not once.  Helen Keller persevered. Helen Keller conquered.  Helen Keller helped.  That is why Helen Keller is my hero.