The story of her life

MANILA, Philippines - It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity to comprehend the impressions and emotions which have been experienced by mankind from the beginning. Each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth and murmuring waters, and blindness and deafness cannot rob him of this gift from past generations. This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense — a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.”

Helen Keller wrote that. Due to an acute illness at an early age, she became deaf and blind for the rest of her life.

Lately, I have had this penchant for reading non-fiction books. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller is one of them. I wanted to know more about the author. Though her name may have sounded familiar to me, all I knew about her is that she was deaf and blind.

She dedicated her book to no less than Alexander Graham Bell, the Scottish-American scientist who invented the telephone, “who has taught the deaf to speak and enabled the listening ear to hear speech from the Atlantic to the Rockies.”

Who, really, was Helen Keller? This I asked myself as I turned from one page to another. Slowly, I got to know her more as I progressed through the book.

It was Anne Sullivan, her dedicated tutor, who was instrumental in making Helen Keller the accomplished woman that she became during her time.

“From the beginning of my education, Miss Sullivan made it a practice to speak to me as she would speak to any hearing child; the only difference was that she spelled the sentences into my hand instead of speaking them...”

Helen did not fail to acknowledge the efforts and the contributions of Sullivan in her life. She was the key that opened the doors of knowledge for Helen.

“It was my teacher’s genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful ... Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn.”

Personally, Helen made me remember my favorite teacher in grade school. She was the one who recognized and appreciated my talents way back then. Come to think of it, I was fortunate for having someone like her as my teacher when I was a kid. And so, I give thanks and due recognition to Evanzueda Roda-Arago.

I feel so blessed. I have my eyes to see and ears to hear. These are gifts that some able persons tend to misuse, abuse, and overuse or even take for granted.

“The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the amenities of conversation. How much more this difficulty must be augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind! They cannot distinguish the tone of the voice ... nor can they watch the expression of the speaker’s face, and a look is often the very soul of what one says.”

Helen was a compassionate person. She felt for the poor though she was deaf and blind. She was “indignant to think that good people should be content to live in fine houses and become strong and beautiful, while others are condemned to live in hideous, sunless tenements ...”

I wondered. Just how many of those people living in mansions, or in exclusive subdivisions, or in high-rise condominiums really do care for the poor?

“Thus, it is that my friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation.”

Helen’s accomplishments during her lifetime are noteworthy. She became a world-famous celebrity, author of four books, fundraiser for the American Foundation for the Blind and a recipient of the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I have reached the end of her story. I have closed the book. I have only admiration for her.

I learned from the story of Helen’s life that:

• a person’s disabilities do not determine who he is;

• we can overcome the difficulties we have in our lives;

• teaching is one of the greatest professions in the world;

• we can make our life’s story spectacular; we can make it miserable, or we can just let time passed us by — it is up to us to decide.

Life is a very worthwhile journey, if we chose to make it that way. Indeed, the story of Helen Keller is an inspiration as I write the story of my life.

This Week’s Winner

Analy F. Cutay works at the Department of Agrarian Reform. She has a BS Agricultural Economics degree from the UP Los Baños. Being the Secretary of the DAR-Laguna Primary Multi-Purpose Cooperative has honed her writing ability.