I Try to Make the Light in Others"Eyes My Sun"
Helen Keller. She helped millions of
people who, like her, were blind and deaf.
We reported before that Helen Keller
suffered from a strange sickness when she was only nineteen months old. It made
her completely blind and deaf. For the next five years she had no way of
successfully communicating with other people.
Then, a teacher -- Anne Sullivan --
arrived from Boston to help her. Miss Sullivan herself had once been blind. She
tried to teach Helen to live like other people. She taught her how to use her
hands as a way of speaking.
Miss Sullivan took Helen out into
the woods to explore nature. They also went to the circus, the theater, and
even to factories. Miss Sullivan explained everything in the language she and
Helen used -- a language of touch -- of fingers and hands. Helen also learned
how to ride a horse, to swim, to row a boat and, even to climb trees.
Helen Keller once wrote about these
early days.
"One beautiful spring morning I
was alone in my room, reading. Suddenly, a wonderful smell in the air made me
get up and put out my hands. The spirit of spring seemed to be passing in my
room. 'What is it?' I asked. The next minute I knew it was coming from the
mimosa tree outside.
"I walked outside to the edge
of the garden, toward the tree. There it was, shaking in the warm sunshine. Its
long branches, so heavy with flowers, almost touched the ground. I walked
through the flowers to the tree itself and then just stood silent. Then I put
my foot on the tree and pulled myself up into it. I climbed higher and higher
until I reached a little seat. Long ago someone had put it there. I sat for a
long time ... Nothing in all the world was like this."
VOICE ONE:
Later, Helen learned that nature
could be cruel as well as beautiful. Strangely enough she discovered this in a
different kind of tree.
"One day my teacher and I were returning
from a long walk. It was a fine morning. But it started to get warm and heavy.
We stopped to rest two or three times. Our last stop was under a cherry tree a
short way from the house.
"The shade was nice and the
tree was easy to climb. Miss Sullivan climbed with me. It was so cool up in the
tree we decided to have lunch there. I promised to sit still until she went to
the house for some food. Suddenly a change came over the tree. I knew the sky
was black because all the heat, which meant light to me, had died out of the
air. A strange odor came up to me from the earth. I knew it -- it was the
odor which always comes before a thunderstorm.
"I felt alone, cut off from
friends, high above the firm earth. I was frightened, and wanted my teacher. I
wanted to get down from that tree quickly. But I was no help to myself. There
was a moment of terrible silence.
"Then a sudden and violent wind
began to shake the tree and its leaves kept coming down all around me. I almost
fell. I wanted to jump, but was afraid to do so. I tried to make myself small
in the tree, as the branches rubbed against me. Just as I thought that both the
tree and I were going to fall, a hand touched me ... It was my teacher. I held
her with all my strength then shook with joy to feel the solid earth under my
feet."
Miss Sullivan stayed with Helen for
many years. She taught Helen how to read, how to write and how to speak. She
helped her to get ready for school and college. More than anything, Helen
wanted to do what others did, and do it just as well.
In time, Helen did go to college and
completed her studies with high honors. But it was a hard struggle. Few of the
books she needed were written in the Braille language that the blind could read
by touching pages. Miss Sullivan and others had to teach her what was in these
books by forming words in her hands.
The study of geometry and physics
was especially difficult. Helen could only learn about squares, triangles, and
other geometrical forms by making them with wires. She kept feeling the
different shapes of these wires until she could see them in her mind.
During her second year at college,
Miss Keller wrote the story of her life and what college meant to her. This is
what she wrote:
"My first day at Radcliffe
College was of great interest. Some powerful force inside me made me test my
mind. I wanted to learn if it was as good as that of others.
"I learned many things at
college. One thing, I slowly learned was that knowledge does not just mean
power, as some people say. Knowledge leads to happiness, because to have it is
to know what is true and real.
"To know what great men of the
past have thought, said and done is to feel the heartbeat of humanity down
through the ages."
All of Helen Keller's knowledge
reached her mind through her sense of touch and smell, and of course her
feelings.
To know a flower was to touch it,
feel it, and smell it. This sense of touch became greatly developed as she got
older.
She once said that hands speak
almost as loudly as words.
She said the touch of some hands
frightened her. The people seem so empty of joy that when she touched their
cold fingers it is as if she were shaking hands with a storm.
She found the hands of others full
of sunshine and warmth.
Strangely enough, Helen Keller
learned to love things she could not hear, music for example. She did this
through her sense of touch.
When waves of air beat against her,
she felt them. Sometimes she put her hand to a singer's throat. She often stood
for hours with her hands on a piano while it was played. Once, she listened to
an organ. Its powerful sounds made her move her body in rhythm with the music.
She also liked to go to museums.
She thought she understood sculpture
as well as others. Her fingers told her the true size, and the feel of the
material.
What did Helen Keller think of
herself? What did she think about the tragic loss of her sight and
hearing? This is what she wrote as a young girl:
"Sometimes a sense of
loneliness covers me like a cold mist -- I sit alone and wait at life's shut
door. Beyond, there is light and music and sweet friendship, but I may not
enter. Silence sits heavy upon my soul.
"Then comes hope with a sweet
smile and says softly, 'There is joy in forgetting one's self.' And so I try to
make the light in others' eyes my sun ... The music in others' ears my symphony
... The smile on others' lips my happiness."
Helen Keller was tall and strong.
When she spoke, her face looked very alive. It helped give meaning to her
words. She often felt the faces of close friends when she was talking to them
to discover their feelings. She and Miss Sullivan both were known for their
sense of humor. They enjoyed jokes and laughing at funny things that happened
to themselves or others.
Helen Keller had to work hard to
support herself after she finished college. She spoke to many groups around the
country. She wrote several books. And she made one movie based on her life. Her
main goal was to increase public interest in the difficulties of people with
physical problems.
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| Helen Keller with Alexander Graham Bell |
The work Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan
did has been written and talked about for many years. Their success showed how
people can conquer great difficulties.
Anne Sullivan died in nineteen
thirty-six, blind herself. Before Miss Sullivan died, Helen wrote and said many
kind things about her.
"It was the genius of my
teacher, her sympathy, her love which made my first years of education so
beautiful.
"My teacher is so near to me
that I do not think of myself as apart from her. All the best of me belongs to
her. Everything I am today was awakened by her loving touch."
Helen Keller died on June first, nineteen
sixty-eight. She was eighty-seven years old. Her message of courage and hope
remains.Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.)
