She was an ordinary and healthy baby, but in February of 1882, nineteen month old Helen was robbed of her sight and hearing by a severe fever, according to “Contemporary Heroes and Heroines”. Helen had once said she was frustrated “at times that [she] kicked and screamed until [she] was exhausted” (Contemporary Heroes and Heroines). When Helen was about six years old, Anne Mansfield Sullivan arrived at the Keller family house to undertake Hellene education. With the help of Anne Sullivan and time, Helen was brought out of darkness and into the light.
She began to understand. The airier between her and the world was little by little lifted. Of course Hellene accomplishment did not stop there. She wanted to learn to speak, too. Though a challenging process, she worked on speaking with unshaken determination. Her progress was remarkable and eventually learned to speak three languages, including French, German, and English. For a young ten-year old to learn to talk without hearing the sounds of the language or even see the movement of the lips, is truly incredible.
Helen was a monster, hungry for knowledge, of course, never stopped learning until she passed to the other did on the first of June in 1968. Hellene achievements weren’t the only thing that made her so incredible amazing. She was an advocate for many causes, such as workers’ rights and women’s suffrage. One of her more lasting influence was her work for the American Foundation for the Blind. She worked non-stop, traveling across the US in order to improve life for blind people.
She created state commissions for the many disabilities, built rehabilitation center, and made education accessible to the blind.
Helen did not stop her work with just yet. Helen intended to help people with disabilities by helping shape a global policy on disabilities and became an ambassador for disabled persons worldwide. Of course, she gotten old and tired, right? No, not at all. She continued, tirelessly, working to help disabled people. Helen began the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund that is later called American Braille Press, with her as its first Board of directors. She then took her work internationally, circling the globe, again, on the behalf of those with disabilities.
Helen lectured in more than 25 countries n five major continents. She has changed the lives of millions of disadvantaged people back then and even after her passing. Although she enchained herself to improving the lives of the handicapped people all around the world, Helen had also written many of her thoughts for people to read. One of which is her essay on optimism published in 1903. At the beginning she opens with a reflection on the universal quest for happiness. She said that “most people measure their happiness in terms of material possession”.
For Helen, who cannot see or hear these possessions would feel only misery and agony. She should be deprived of happiness, but as an optimist, she does not feel that way. Helen may be lacking some senses, but that has not stopped her now has it? Even with such lacking abilities, she still is able to beautifully admonish such a testimony worth reading. Helen, who has only known “darkness and stillness”, found her happiness without the important senses of sight and hearing. It is Helen, who has attained happiness that many still confuse for riches and fame.
She admits she “once or twice [has] wrestled with evil”. She state “optimism… Does not rest on the absence of evil”. Helen said it is the evil she had struggled with that has made her and those who have touched it, stronger. Helen did not simple become an optimist she had fought and struggled with evil. Her pure honesty is a sign for her purity and her greatness. Her beautiful writing ad her deep and passionate argument is also one of the things that make her truly remarkable. Remember she just stared college at age 20 when she wrote this essay.