Once upon a time, there was a girl called Helen Keller. She suffered from a horrible disease that made her blind and deaf. Which as you can imagine was incredibly frustrating for her. Not being able to do the same things as everyone else her age was incredibly depressing and irritating for her. Helen hated people treating her differently they would be so gentle with her and treated her like a baby. She knew they didn’t mean to but it didn’t change how angry and annoyed she got with them. She wanted them to know that although she can’t hear or see her brain was fine and she wasn’t dum. Everyone always felt sorry for her and Helen could not stand it ‘how can they feel sorry for me with just one look of me’ she thought. They don’t even know what I am going through and straight away they have this horrible lovely attitude with me. I just want to scream sometimes and tell them that I maybe not be able to see or hear but I think the same as everyone else and my brain is not disabled.
Helen used to express her frustration by laying on the floor screaming and kicking. After a while, Helen’s mum thought it would be best if Helen went to school, so she took Helen to a special school for the blind. That was where they met Anne Sullivan, a talented young teacher, that took it upon herself to find a way Helen could understand everything and learn to be able to talk. Anne new Helen’s situation was a bit different to her other students because Helen could neither hear or see. So Anne took advantage of Helen’s sense of touch and got her to learn things through feeling everything. Anne showed this theory when she got Helen’s fingers under water then she would spell the word water on Helen’s hand. Slowly Helen understood that different words stood for different objects, names or things.
Soon after that Helen could speak and understand different people by putting her hand on the person’s lips feeling the vibration. Once Helen understood English she could speak French, German, Latin and Greek. Her life suddenly came together as everything worked out and for once in her life she was happy. She was especially happy because she could once in her life be normal like everyone else. She could do things normal people do and nothing could stop her. Helen felt free, something she hasn’t felt in a long while and her life changed from negative to positive. Confidence was in her every step, independence grew with her knowledge. Her life was perfect to her and nothing could ever change it.
Helen was very happy but she thought about all the other disabled people in the world. She was so curious about their lives. How were they treated and were they accepted and allowed to be themselves? Did they live in poverty or luxury? Unfortunately for Helen, disabled people at the time were not treated very well. Helen hated this so much that she set off with Anne and her dog to help all the disabled people they could. She gave public speeches and won the rights for disabled people. After all, she didn’t need words all the time to express her feelings, she just gave big loving hugs to all the people she could.
Helen Adams Keller was an amazing woman she never gave up and would let nothing break her. Her most inspirational quote was ’The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched-they must be felt with the heart.’Born on June 27th 1880 died on June 1st 1968. We will remember you and everything you did for the world and we will always look up to you as a role model.R.I.P.
By Vismaya Pillai
